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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA    SAN  DIEGO 


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CI  39  (2/95)                                                                      UCSD  Lb. 

NEQEO  SUFFRAGE. 


Should  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  amendments  be  repealed? 


SPEECH 


OP 


Hon.  EDWARD  DE  Y.  MORRELL 

Ml  ' 


OF     PENNSYLVANIA, 


HOUSE   OF   REPRESEN'TATIYES, 


Monday,  Apkil  4,  1904. 


6f'98 


"W  A  S  H I  ]sr  &  X  O  N". 

1904. 


SPEECH 

OF 

HON.  EDWAED  DE  Y.  MOEPvELL. 


The  House  being  iu  Committee  of  the  ^Vhole  House  on  the  stateof  the  Union, 
and  having  under  consideration  the  bill  (H.  R.  I'JSfjO)  making  appropriations 
for  the  support  of  the  Military  Academy  for  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30. 
19<J5,  and  for  other  purposes — 

Mr.  MORRELL  said: 

Mr.  Chair:iax:  On  the  S'Tth  of  January  the  gentleman  from 
Georgia  [Mr.  Hardwick]  ,  taking  for  his  text  two  resolutions 
that  had  been  adopted  by  the  Union  League  Club,  of  New  York 
City,  delivered  a  somewhat  unprovoked  address  in  this  House  on 
what  is  commonly  called  "'the  negro  question,''  a  question  touch- 
ing the  right  of  the  negro  to  vote,  which  seems  to  be  the  legiti- 
mate bequest  of  the  slavery  disctission.  The  resolutions  referred 
to  are  as  follows: 

Resolved,  That  the  Government  be  requested  to  instruct  the  district  attor- 
neys in  the  various  States  where  an  illegal  siippress'on  of  votes  is  alleged  to 
prosecute  every  case  where  there  has  been  a  violation  of  the  laws  of  the 
United  States  in  reference  to  suffrage,  if  adequate  eviJeac  can  be  obtained 
to  justify  a  submission  of  such  case  to  the  grand  jury. 

Resolved,  (1)  That  Congress  ba  requested  and  be  respectfully  urged  to  in- 
vestigate with  thoroughness  an  J  impartiality  the  charges  of  a  suppre.ssion  of 
votes  contrary  to  the  foui-leenth  and  fifteenth  amendments  to  the  Consti 
tution  of  the  United  States,  and  in  every  ease  where  such  restriction  is  ao- 
complished  by  a  limitation  of  the  franchLse  for  any  reason  the  repi-esentation 
of  such  State  in  Congress  be  reduced,  and  also  to  see  that  the  fifteenth  amend- 
ment be  in  no  way  violated  either  directly  or  by  subterfuge;  and  (2J  that 
where  the  decisions  of  the  courts  or  the  practices  at  elections  disclose  the  fact 
that  the  statutes  are  inadequate,  amendatory  acts  be  passed  remedying  the 
defects  disclosed. 

In  the  outset.  Mr.  Chairman.  I  vrish  to  congratulate  the  Democ- 
racy ui-on  having  at  last  found  a  champion  to  voice  boldly  and 
unflinchingly  the  Sintiments  which  the  party  has  long  cherished 
but  has  not  had  the  hardihood  to  proclaim.  The  gentleman  from 
Georgia  states  them  courageously,  and  for  that  I  honor  him. 

I  have  waited  for  those  older  and  abler  than  myself  to  make 
some  reply,  but  so  far  in  vain. 

I  feel  that  if  the  time  has  arrived,  which  is  suggested  by  the 
5l9i  3 


remarks  of  the  gentleman  from  Georgia,  for  a  discnssion  of  the 
so-called  "  negro  question.''  it  should  be  on  the  lines  of  coopera- 
tion between  all  the  States  of  the  Union,  North  and  South,  East 
and  West,  imiting  in  an  earnest  desire  to  solve,  if  possible,  this  great 
problem— a  problem  which  ought  not  to  any  longer  separate  north- 
ern feeling  from  southera  feeling,  as  it  is  one  concerning  which 
all  States  and  all  sections  should  strive,  as  in  all  other  great  na- 
tional questions,  for  a  wise  solution,  always,  however,  within  the 
limits  of  the  Constitution,  which  both  North  and  Soitth,  East  and 
West,  equally  claim  and  jealously  guard. 

In  the  gentleman's  argument  he  has  quoted,  with  a  great  deal 
of  satisfaction  to  himself,  from  perhaps  the  ablest  of  American 
statesmen  claiming  the  political  faith  of  the  Republican  party — 
the  Hon.  James  G.  Blaine.  The  very  conclusions  which  he  has 
arrived  at,  and  which  he  desires  the  House  to  accept  by  the  reso- 
lutions which  he  and  others  have  introduced,  were  presented  some 
years  ago  for  argument  and  disc-ussion  under  the  heading  of 
'•Ought  the  negro  to  be  disfranchised'-  Ought  he  to  have  been 
enfranchised?  "  This  discussion  was  engaged  in  by  eight  gentle- 
men—one, the  Hon.  James  G.  Blaine,  who,  as  I  have  said,  has 
been  so  often  quoted  by  the  gentleman  from  Georgia;  the  others, 
with  the  exception  of  General  Garfield  and  Mr.  Wendell  Phillip-, 
were  gentlemen  identified  with  the  Democratic  party  and  distin- 
guished and  influential  in  its  councils  at  that  time. 

General  Garfield  was  a  Republican,  afterwards  President  of  the 
United  States,  and  one  who  had  taken  an  honorable  and  promi- 
nent part  in  all  leg'slation  respecting  negro  suffrage.  Mr.  Wen- 
dell Phillips  was  neither  a  Republican  nor  a  Democrat,  but  always 
reserved  to  himself  the  right  to  criticise  and  condemn  either  partj'. 
The  other  gentlemen  who  engaged  in  this  discussion  were  the 
Hon.  L.  Q.  C.  Lamar.  United  States  Senator  from  Mississippi; 
Wade  Hampton,  governor  of  South  Carolina;  Alexander  H. 
Stephens.  Representative  from  Georgia:  ]Montgomery  Blair,  a 
member  of  the  Cabinet  of  President  Lincoln,  and  Thomas  A. 
Hendricks,  United  States  Senator  from  Indiana,  and  subsequently 
Vice-President  of  the  United  States  in  the  first  Cleveland  Admin- 
istration. 
5998 


In  the  concluding  article  Mr.  Blaine  says: 

Of  the  replies  made  by  the  other  gentlemen,  identified  as  they  have  been 
ard  are  with  t!;e  Democratic  party,  it  is  noteworthy  that,  vrith  the  escejjtion 
of  Mr.  Blair,  they  agree  that  the  negro  ought  not  to  be  disfranchished.  Aa 
all  of  these  gentlemen  were  hostile  to  the  enfraurhisement  of  the  race,  their 
present  position  must  be  taken  as  a  step  forward,  and  as  an  attestation  of  the 
wisdom  and  courage  of  the  Republican  party  at  the  time  they  were  violently 
opposing  its  measures.  This  general  expression  leaves  Mr.  Blair  to  be  treated 
as  an  exception,  and  for  many  of  his  averments  the  best  answer  is  to  be  found 
in  the  sugge.stions  and  concesiions  of  his  Democratic  associates.  I  need  not 
make  any  elaborate  reply  to  Mr.  Blair,  when  he  is  answered  with  such  sig- 
nificance and  such  point  by  those  of  his  own  political  household.  It  is  one  of 
the  curious  developments  of  political  history  that  a  man  who  sat  in  the  Cabi- 
nt  of  Abraham  Lincoln  and  was  present  when  emancipation  was  decreed 
should  live  to  wi-ite  a  paper  against  the  enfranchisement  of  the  negro,  when 
the  vice-president  of  the  rebel  Confederacy  and  two  of  its  most  distinguished 
officers  are  taking  the  other  side. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  in  the  argtiment  of  Mr.  Blaine  he  does 

not  suppose  possible  the  existence  of  conditions  that  confront  us 

to-day.     He  says: 

The  class  of  men  whose  views  are  thus  hastily  summarized  do  not  contem- 
plate the  withdrawal  of  the  suffrage  from  the  negro  without  a  corresponding 
reduction  in  the  representation  in  Congress  of  the  States  where  the  negro  is 
a  large  factor  in  the  apportionment.  And  yet  it  is  quite  probable  that  they 
have  not  given  thought  to  the  difficulty,  or  rather  the  impossibility,  of  com- 
passing that  end.  Under  the  Constitution,  as  it  is  now  construed,  the  dimi- 
nution of  representative  strength  could  only  result  from  the  State.3  passing 
such  laws  as  would  disfranchise  the  negrro  by  some  educational  or  property 
test,  as  it  is  forbidden  by  the  fifteenth  apiendment  to  disfranchise  him  on  ac- 
count of  his  race.  But  no  Southern  State  will  do  this,  and  for  two  reasons: 
First,  they  will  in  no  event  consent  to  a  reduction  of  representative  strength, 
and.  second,  they  could  not  make  any  disfranchisement  of  the  negro  that 
would  not  at  the  same  time  disfranchise  an  immense  number  of  whites. 

And  yet  the  very  thing  has  happened  which  Mr.  Blaine  in  all 
his  faith  and  reliance  in  the  power  and  justice  of  the  Republican 
party  in  meeting  the  issues  believed  would  at  once  be  corrected 
and  what  he  also  did  not  believe  that  the  Democratic  party  of  the 
South  would  attempt,  fearing  a  reduction  in  representation  which 
is  emphasized  by  the  resolutions  of  the  gentleman  from  Georgia. 

Further  on  he  says: 

No  human  right  on  this  continent  is  more  completely  guaranteed  than  the 
I'lght  against  disf ranchisejnent  on  account  of  race,  color,  or  previous  condi- 
tion of  servitude,  as  embodied  in  the  fifteenth  amendment  of  the  C  institution 
of  the  United  States. 

In  the  article  contributed  by  Hon.  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  to 
demonstrate  the  purity  of  the  enactment  of  the  laws  of  his  State, 
he  laid  great  stress  upon  a  decision  which  had  just  then  been  ren- 

51,93 


6 

dered  by  Judge  Snead,  in  which  attention  was  called  to  the  polit- 
ical debauchery  and  the  puivhasable  character  of  the  negro  vote. 
Now,  let  me  read  from  some  newspapers,  published  within  the 
last  two  years  in  a  certain  county  in  the  State  which  Mr.  Stephens 
had  the  honor  to  represent,  showing  how  now  that  the  negro  has 
been  disqualified  the  purity  of  the  ballot  has  been  assured: 

Eliminating  the  negro  vote  made  a  great  stride  forward  in  politics.  Some 
men  in  consi  'ering  the  expensiveness  of  the  white  purchasable  vote  declare 
the  white  p:imary  is  a  failure,  but  this  is  a  superficial  view. 

Negro  voters  may  have  been  cheaper,  but  wc  paid  a  great  deal  more  than 
money  for  them .  We  gave  a  prominence  to  worthless  negro  vagabonds,  and 
white  ward  workers  were  comi  elled  for  nights  in  advance  of  the  election  to 
be  corralled  with  negroes  in  bullpens  in  doling  out  cigars  and  whisky,  serv- 
ing barbecues,  and  permitting  familiarities  in  speech  and  action  from  inso- 
lent blacks,  who  took  advantage  of  the  need  for  their  votes  to  push  them- 
selves into  social  equality. 

The  elimination  of  the  negro  vote  has  retired  the  negro  bully  and  black- 
guard from  the  election  precinct,  and  we  are  also  freed  from  the  sight  ot 
noisy  and  half-drunken  negroes  being  driven  in  carriages  from  polls  to  polls 
to  vote  first  in  one  name  and  then  another.    For  this  much  let  us  give  thanks. 

But  we  have  developed  a  new  era.  Many  white  men,  who  would  not  sell 
their  votes  under  the  old  regime,  along  with  the  negroes,  now  barter  them 
in  the  most  bra  en  maaner.  and  it  is  declared  we  now  have  nearly  2,000  ptu-- 
chasabie  white  voters. 

The  elimination  of  this  evil  is  the  next  thing  to  which  the  citizens  must 
address  themselves.  There  must  be  a  sentiment  created  in  the  community 
against  buying  votes,  as  well  as  to  condemn  the  sellers.  One  is  as  reprehen- 
sible as  the  other ,and  the  former  is  largely  responsible  for  the  latter. 

The  best  men  in  the  community  must  devote  themselves  to  the  solution  of 
this  problem.  The  disease  has  grown  to  desperate  proportions.  There  is  no 
common  sense  and  no  morals  in  a  candidate  having  to  buy  his  way  into  oflBce, 
or  in  an  ofiicial  having  to  spend  two  or  three  years'  salary  to  retain  his  office. 

This  is  a  political  blot  on  the  county  that  must  be  wiped  out.  Let  the  best 
thought  in  the  community  be  devoted  to  devising  a  practical  remedy.  In 
eliminating  the  negro  we  have  taken  a  valuable  step.  Now  let  us  take  an- 
other ana  eliminate  the  possibility  to  2.000  purchasable  white  voters,  being 
the  balance  of  power  in  all  our  elections. 

There  are  a  great  many  more  dollars  in  circulation  to-day  than  there  were 
yesterday.  Ten-dollar  bills,  five-dollar  bills,  but  no  small  change,  were 
strictly  in  evidence  at  every  polling  place  yesteiday.  Politics  may  have  a 
commercial  tint,  but  there  is  no  hypocrisy  displayed.  The  coin  is  always  on 
hand  tor  buying  voters  and  tliere  is  a  large  element  ever  ready  to  be  pur- 
chased. It  takes  no  delicate  approaches  to  catch  a  floater,  and  the  average 
rioaters  will  barter  like  peddlers  for  a  good  price. 

This  morning  the  very  first  and  most  effective  thing  done  at  the  different 
wards  was  to  flash  the  pay  roll.  There  seems  to  be  no  talisman  like  letting 
the  floater  get  a  "  sight.'  It  teaches  him  to  be  independent  and  not  to  make 
himselt  too  cheap.  To  stretch  the  language  a  trifle,  "it  makes  him  self- 
respecting." 

In  the  Fourth  Ward  the  display  of  ten-dollar  Williams  was  lavish  in  the 
extreme.  The  Fourth  Ward  seems  to  be  strongly  tinctured  with  the  "  Re- 
publican spirit  of  commercialism,"  and  the  workers  walked  about  with  the 
ducats  strung  between  their  fingers  just  the  same  as  a  sport  on  the  race  track. 
The  boys  up  m  '•bloody  six  hundred"  are  too  honest  to  hide  the  fact  that 
money  is  beine  usea. 
5998 


In  order  that  Members  of  the  House  may  have  an  opportunity 
of  studying  and  comparing  the  views  and  conclusions  of  men  who 
had  taken  the  most  prominent  parts  in  bringing  about  a  condi- 
tion that  they  were  at  that  time  discussing,  whose  judgments  and 
decisions  were  made  after  careful  deliberation  as  to  what  might 
or  what  might  not  be  the  effect  of  a  misstatement,  I  shall  print 
as  1  art  of  my  remarks  the  arguments  of  these  distinguished  gen- 
tlemen 

These  articles  to  which  I  refer  were  written  some  twenty-five 
years  ago.  It  is  therefore  necessary  to  ask  ourselves  what  the 
causes  are,  if  any.  which  have  brought  about  the  necessity  which 
is  evidenced  by  the  resolutions  introduced  by  the  gentleman  from 
Georgia  and  the  conclusions  reached  by  him  in  his  arguments. 

By  the  introduction  of  his  resolutions  for  the  repeal  of  the  four- 
teenth and  fifteenth  amendments  the  gentleman  from  Georgia  ad- 
mits the  necessity  of  some  action  by  Congress  concerning  these 
particular  parts  of  the  Constitiation.  The  question  at  once  arises, 
What  is  this  necessity  and  what  would  be  the  effect  if  these  amend- 
ments were  not  repealed?  No  other  answer  can  be  made  except 
that  their  provisions  are  in  danger  of  being  enforced  by  Congress. 
"What  provision  in  these  amendment?  is  to  be  feared  by  the  Repre- 
sentatives from  certain  Southern  States  who  have  introluced 
these  resolutions?  Surely  not  that  which  provides  that  the  right 
of  suffrage  shall  not  be  denied  on  account  of  race,  color,  or  pre- 
vious condition  of  servitude,  for  the  manner  in  which  these  Stat:s 
have  brought  about  the  abridgment  of  the  suffrage  has  been 
twice  d:cided  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  to  be 
matters  for  State  regulation.  The  only  conclusion,  therefore, 
which  can  be  arrived  at  for  the  necessity  for  the  repeal  of  the 
amendment  referred  to  in  the  resolutions  is  the  fear  that  the 
provisions  which  require  that  repre.sentation  in  Congress  shall 
be  reduced  accordingly  might  be  enforced. 

I  shall  not  follow  the  gentleman  in  his  zig-zag  journey  through 
the  last  half  century  of  American  history,  but  shall  admit  as  not 
at  all  relevant  or  important  to  this  discussion  the  most  of  his  his- 
torical citations.  I  shall  frankly  admit  that  most  of  the  Northern 
States  have  at  one  time  or  another  refused  the  ballot  to  the  negro, 
and  that  there  are  only  three  or  four  States  in  the  Union  where 
the  suffrage  has  always  been  extended  to  the  negro.     In  several 

5998 


8 

Northern  States,  indeed,  voting  is  still  prohibited  to  the  negro  by 
their  organic  law,  though  in  effect  this  law  is  now  overridden 
and  nullified  by  the  fifteenth  amendment.  I  also  concede  that  a 
majority  of  the  statesmen  of  the  North  before  the  rebellion  were 
not  in  favor  of  interfering  with  slavery  in  the  South  or  of  ex- 
tending negro  suffrage  in  the  North.  Many  of  the  most  con- 
spicuous, fearless,  and  effective  abolitionists  that  this  country 
ever  saw,  men  in  favor  of  universal  emancipation,  and  effecting 
it  whenever  they  could,  regarding  slavery  as  an  unmixed  evil,  a 
curse  to  white  and  black  alike,  and  to  be  abolished  at  the  earliest 
practicable  moment,  were  southern  men.  I  need  not  mention 
such  names  as  Washington,  Jefferson,  Richard  Henry  Lee,  Grimke, 
Birney,  Cassius  M.  Clay,  and  if  we  could  call  the  roll  a  thousand 
brave  and  generous  souls  would  answer. 

Nor  shall  I  claim  Mr.  Lincoln  as  an  original  antislavery  man. 
When  he  was  elected  President  he  seemed  to  have  been  almost  in- 
different to  the  existence  of  slavery,  and  declared  that  he  was 
willing  to  preserve  the  Union  half  slave  and  half  free.  He  had 
no  intention  of  meddling  with  slavery  in  the  States  where  it  ex- 
isted, and  did  not  wish  to  give  the  ballot  to  the  negroes  even  in 
his  own  State.  He  wanted  to  save  the  Union.  Nothing  else  was 
of  any  consequence.  On  these  questions  his  views  and  purposes 
were  shared  by  almobl  all  the  members  of  the  party  which  elected 
him. 

Many  millions  of  our  people  assume,  without  thinking,  that 
negro  suffrage  was  forced  upon  the  South  by  the  fourteenth  and 
fifteenth  amendments  as  an  act  of  hostility  and  in  a  spirit  of  re- 
venge. The  exact  opposite  is  true.  These  amendments  were 
added  to  the  Constitution  in  the  interest  of  harmony  and  for  the 
purpose  of  perfecting  the  real  purpose  of  the  thirteenth  amend- 
ment. Here  is  the  state  of  things:  Slavery  had  been  abolished. 
The  whites  of  the  South  could  not  conceive  of  the  possibility  that 
the  free  negro  would  work  without  physical  compulsion.  When 
it  became  known  that  President  Johnson's  purpose  was  to  allow 
"  the  States  lately  in  rebellion  "  to  resume  their  former  relations 
to  the  Union,  with  full  control  of  their  own  affairs,  the  whites 
perceived  that  by  municipal  laws  they  could  reduce  the  black 
race  to  semislavery,  which  would  keep  it  industrially  and  p  iliti- 
cally  in  the  power  of  the  former  masters.     Several  of  the  Southern 

59118 


9 

States  adopted  legislative  statutes  and  civic  ordinances  for  the 
purpose  of  carrying  out  this  policy  and  realizing  this  reestab- 
lished relation  of  servitude.    Louisiana  adopted  these  ordinances: 

Every  negro  is  required  to  be  in  the  regular  service  of  some  white  person 
or  former  owner,  who  shall  be  responsible  for  the  conduct  of  said  negro;  but 
said  employer  or  former  owner  may  permit  said  negro  to  hire  his  own  time 
by  special  permission  in  writing,  which  permit  shall  not  extend  over  seven 
days  at  one  time. 

No  negro  shall  sell,  barter,  or  exchange  any  article  of  merchandise  with- 
out the  special  written  permission  of  his  employer. 

Regtilations  were  also  adopted  compelling  negroes,  under  pen- 
alty, to  be  in  their  quarters  at  certain  hours,  and  others  defining 
the  times,  places,  and  methods  of  their  buying  and  selling.  This, 
of  course,  established  a  peonage  scarcely  less  dear  than  the  slavery 
from  which  they  had  escaped.  It  made  their  emancipation  a 
mockery.  It  f.bolished  free  labor.  It  reestablished  the  overseer 
system.  If  these  laws  continued  to  exist,  slavery  was  not  abol- 
ished. 

Mr.  Lincoln  has  been  quoted  as  saying  that  he  was  not  in  sym- 
pathy with  giving  the  right  of  franchise  to  the  negro.  Let  me 
ask  if  it  is  imagined  that  had  Mr.  Lincoln  lived  and  realized  that 
practically  the  only  condition  which  was  imposed  bj'  the  victors 
of  that  most  terrible  of  all  terrible  struggles— namely,  the  adop- 
tion in  spirit  as  well  as  in  fact  of  the  thirteenth  amendment — was 
not  being  carried  out,  and  therefore  the  chief  result  of  the  war 
nullified,  would  he  not  have  sanctioned  and  put  into  force  the 
fourteenth  and  fifteenth  amendments  with  all  that  dogged  ear- 
nestness of  purpose  with  which  he  waged  the  war  for  the  preser- 
vation of  the  Union,  even  though  it  cost  him  as  much  or  even 
more  sorrow? 

In  this  situation  two  alternatives  presented  themselves — in- 
definite or  prolonged  military  rule  by  the  Federal  Army  in  the 
Southern  States  or  the  endowment  of  the  black  race  with  enough 
political  power  to  insure  their  protection. 

In  this  dilemma  the  ablest  and  most  distinguished  men  in  both 
Houses  of  Congress  were  gathered  aboiat  President  Johnson,  in- 
cluding General  Grant,  his  successor,  and  an  earnest  and  pro- 
longed conference  was  held.  After  much  discussion  it  was 
decided  that  permanent  military  rule  was  too  obnoxious  to  bi- 
seriously  considered,  and  that  remedy  was  rejected. 

The  majority  of  the  Republican  party  did  not  consider  the 


10 

enfranchisement  of  the  negro  an  ideal  solution  of  the  vexing  prob- 
lem. But  it  seemed  the  best  at  hand,  and  was  adopted  as  a  gi-eat 
improvement  upon  anarchy. 

If  the  army  rule  had  been  continued .  with  a  regiment  of  Federal 
soldiers  in  every  State,  military  rule  would  undoubtedly  have  pro- 
dncf  d.  as  it  always  does  produce,  en  rmous  and  terrible  evils. 

One  of  the  ablest  st  >tesmen  of  that  time,  Cai'l  Schurz,  traveled 
through  the  South  soon  after  the  close  of  the  war  as  the  personal 
agent  of  President  Andrew  Johnson  to  study  the  conditions  which 
reconstruction  had  to  face.     He  says: 

It  ii  not  to  be  forgotten  that  negro  enfranchisement  was  resorted  to  in  a 
situation  so  complicated  that  whatever  might  have  been  done  to  solve  the 
most  pressing  problems  would  have  appeared  a  colossal  mistake  in  the  light 
of  subsequent  developments. 

On  July  28,  18G8,  the  Secretary  of  State,  in  pursuance  of  a  con- 
current resolution  of  Congress  passed  one  week  previously,  issued 
a  proclamation  declaring  that  the  fourteenth  amendment  had 
been  ratified  by  three-fourths  of  the  States;  and  on  the  30th  day 
of  March,  1870,  he  issued  a  similar  proclamation,  declaring  that 
the  fifteenth  amendment  had  been  duly  ratified  by  three-fourths 
of  the  States.  The  Sapreme  Court  has  decided  a  great  number 
of  cases  arising  under  both  these  amendments,  as  may  be  seen  by 
reference  to  the  Constitution.  Manual,  and  Digest  prepared  for 
the  Fifty-eighth  Congress.  The  validity  of  the  amendments  has 
been  sustained  in  everj-  one  of  these  cases.  It  is  now  too  late  to 
question  their  validity  or  disobey  their  mandates.  Indeed.  I  do 
not  think  their  validity  was  ever  questioned  in  this  House  until 
the  2Tth  of  January,  1904.  when  the  gentleman  from  Georgia 
consented  to  illuminate  the  subject. 

It  is  attempted  to  apologize  for  the  violation  by  some  of  the 
Southern  States  of  these  amendments,  or  at  least  to  minimize 
their  offense  against  human  rights,  by  asserting  that  some  North- 
ern States,  as  Ohio,  Kansas,  and  Minnesota,  rejected  negro 
suffrage  for  themselves  during  the  very  year  that  the  fifteenth 
amendment  was  adopted,  and  that  no  State  in  the  Union  except 
New  York  had  ever  explicitly  extended  to  the  negro  the  right  to 
vote.  This  is  indeed  true,  but  it  is  to  be  added  that  since  the 
adoption  of  the  fifteenth  amendment  they  have  never  denied  to 
him  the  right  to  vote  on  account  of  color. 

Notwithstanding  the  immense  majority  in  Congress  and  of 
59S8 


11 

states  by  which  these  amendments  were  ratified,  the  gentleman 

from  Georgia  has  the  assurance  to  say: 

The  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  amendments  were  adopted,  if  adopted  at  all, 
against  the  will  of  a  majority  of  all  the  people  in  the  Union,  by  trickery  and 
treachery  in  the  North  and  by  force  and  violence  in  the  South. 

He  announces  that  awful  things  will  happen  if  the  United  States 
shall  have  the  temerity  to  attempt  to  enforce  these  amendments. 
It  will  cause  a  cyclone, ahuriijane.possiblyan  earthquake.  The 
fourteenth  amendment  provides  that  when  the  right  to  vote  for 
President,  Representatives  in  Congress,  or  State  ofl&cers  is  denied 
to  citizens  of  the  United  States  "  except  for  participation  in  re- 
bellion or  other  crimes,  the  basis  of  representation  therein  shall 
be  reduced  in  the  proportion  which  the  number  of  such  male  citi- 
zens bears  to  the  whole  number  of  male  citizens  21  years  of  age  in 
said  State.' 

And  here  the  gentleman  from  G-eorgia  raises  his  voice  and  ex- 
claims: 

If  Ccngi"ess  should  be  unwise  enough  to  elect  to  exercise  the  discretionary 
power  vested  in  it  by  section  5  of  Article  XIV.  it  will  not  only  b;  the  most 
serious  stran  of  the  present  cordial  i-elations  so  happily  existing  between 
the  sections,  but  it  will  require  a  readjustment  of  the  basis  of  representation 
that  will  not  start  at  the  Potomac  and  at  Rio  Grande,  but  will  stretch  from 
Hatteras  to  the  Golden  Gate,  from  Maine  to  Florida,  and  will  embrace  in  its 
majestic  sweep  every  State  and  Territory  in  the  Union  and  even  our  new 
islands  of  the  sea 

By  this  comprehensive  menace  the  gentleman  from  Georgia 
means  tliat  under  section  2.  Article  XIV,  it  is  prescribed  that 
when  the  right  to  vote  "  is  denied  to  any  of  the  male  inhabitants "" 
of  any  State  who  are  "21  years  of  age  and  citizens  of  the  United 
States,  or  in  any  way  abridged,  except  for  participation  in  rebel- 
lion or  for  other  crimes."  the  basis  of  represent:ition  in  that  State 
shall  be  reduced  accordingly. 

I  admit  the  contention.  That  is  what  it  means.  He  further 
claims  that  several  of  the  Northern  Stat,  s  do  in  fact  at  the  present 
time  abridge  the  franchise  of  citizens  of  the  United  States  who 
are  21  years  old  by  requiring  educational  or  property  qualifica- 
tions, or  prepayment  of  taxes,  or  a  specific  religious  belief,  or  na- 
tivity in  the  United  States,  or  the  use  of  the  Australian  ballot. 
requiring  a  certain  degree  of  intelligence;  and  he  insists  that  the 
basis  of  representation  shall  be  reduced  accordingly  in  said  States. 
I  shall  not  enter  upon  that  discussion.  It  is  a  question  for  the 
5^98 


12 

Federal  courts.  If  after  due  consideration  tliey  shall  deliber- 
ately decide  and  declare  that  such  limitations  of  the  franchise  do 
in  fact  come  within  the  purport  of  that  amendment,  the  people 
of  the  States  which  for  the  promotion  of  the  public  welfare  have 
placed  such  limitations  upon  the  franchise  will  accept  the  de- 
cision without  a  murmur  and  modify  their  basis  of  apportion- 
ment according  thereto. 

Of  the  9,000,000  so-called  negroes  in  the  United  States.  8,000.000 
are  in  the  fifteen  Southern  States.  Of  males  21  years  of  age  the 
negroes  number  about  2,000,000  in  this  nation.  The  gentleman 
from  Georgia  alleges  that ' '  of  the  more  than  a  million  and  a  half 
negro  males  of  voting  age"  in  the  eleven  States  that  once  con- 
stituted the  Southern  Confederacy  "three-fourths  of  a  million 
can  neither  read  nor  write." 

I  would  ask  him  if  he  is  proud  of  this  record;  if  he  experiences 
self-satisfaction  in  the  reflection  and  the  declaration  that  a  ma- 
jority of  the  negroes  of  the  South  can  neither  read  nor  write. 
He  says  that  the  illiteracy  of  the  southern  negro  has  been  rap- 
idly reduced  since  he  was  made  free;  that  negro  illiteracy  in 
those  States  was  77  i>ev  cent  in  1880,  63  per  cent  in  1890.  and  49 
per  cent  in  1900 — in  other  words,  that  more  than  one-half  the 
negroes  of  the  South  can  now  read  and  write,  and  that  the  num- 
ber who  can  read  and  write  to-day  is  50  per  cent  greater  than  it 
was  when  Lincoln  issued  his  emancipation  proclamation. 

This  would  seem  to  be  a  marvelously  good  showing,  but  it  is 
argued  otherwise.  It  is  insisted  that  while  the  southern  negro  is 
more  intelligent,  he  is  more  wicked  and  pernicious.  Or,  in  the 
language  of  the  gentleman,  "  During  this  same  period  his  crimi- 
nality increased  in  more  rapid  ratio  than  his  illiteracy  decreased." 
This  h?  tries  to  prove  by  adducing  the  alleged  fact  that  the  num- 
ber of  negroes  arrested  in  the  South  has  increased  one-third  dur- 
ing the  last  twenty  years.  On  arriving  at  this  datum  my  friend 
exclams:  "There  you  are;  there  are  more  prisoners  than  there 
used  to  be;  ergo,  more  crime."  He  seems  to  think  that  settles  the 
question.  I  want  to  ask:  Does  it  settle  the  question?  Let  us  see. 
In  "old  slavery  times"  there  were  very  few  negroes  arrested 
in  the  entire  South.  If  a  negro  "went  bad,"  he  was  flogged  or 
subjected  to  some  physical  remonstrance,  which  he  appreciated 
and  which  was  continued  until  he  went  good  again. 

5998 


13 

So  there  were  almost  no  arrests.  After  the  war  the  negroes 
became  subject  to  the  statute  law,  but  the  planter  was  still  to 
some  extent  the  patriarch  and  had  his  own  methods  of  restraining; 
the  vicious  and  lawless.  When  the  ballot  was  given  to  the  negro 
by  the  fifteenth  amendment  and  the  reconstruction  measures 
were  enforced,  it  caused  tremendous  irritation  and  exasperation 
between  the  races.  The  bitter  hostilities  then  engendered  still 
exist,  and,  I  might  suggest,  have  something  to  do  with  the  increase 
in  the  niimber  of  negro  prisoners. 

While  it  is  undeniably  the  right  of  each  State  to  care  for  its 
criminal  population  as  it  deems  most  advisable,  yet  I  venture  the 
opinion  that  if  the  various  jails  and  penitentiaries  in  some  of  the 
Southern  States  were  conducted  in  a  manner  which  woiild  not 
bring  the  inmates  into  social  contact  with  one  another,  so  that 
one  imprisoned  for  a  trifling  offense  would  not  be  brought  in  con- 
tact and  contaminated  by  the  habitual  or  confirmed  criminal,  and 
if  such  institutions  were  conducted  at  an  expense  to  the  State 
rather  than  at  a  substantial  profit  it  is  but  reasonable  to  suppose 
that  crime  in  the  South  would  show  a  marked  decrease. 

Professor  Frances  Kellor,  of  the  University  of  Chicago,  in  a 
sociological  study  of  the  criminal  negro  (in  the  Arena,  January, 
1901),  says: 

Before  the  war  the  South  had  but  few  penal  institutions.  The  criminal 
then,  as  now,  was  the  negro;  and,  as  a  slave,  he  was  chastised  or  dispatched 
by  his  master  as  the  nature  of  his  crime  demanded.  The  few  whites  were 
confined  in  jails  or  county  prisons.  The  previous  condition  of  the  negro  as 
a  slave  makes  tlie  progress  of  the  reformatory  idea  exceedingly  slow,  for  it 
must  grow  with  the  conception  of  the  negro  as  a  man. 

The  current  opinion  in  the  South  is  that  the  negro  is  incapable  of  reform. 
In  Alabama  and  Georgia  county  reformatories  are  being  established,  and 
New  Orleans  is  stmggling  to  obtain  one.  In  those  already  existing  much 
labor  and  little  instruction  are  the  practice. 

Most  of  the  advancement  seen  in  Northern  i)enal  systems  and  laws  is  un- 
known. Many  of  the  people  are  hostile  to  the  reformatory  idea,  for  the  basis 
of  the  .southern  system  is  financial.  A  successful  prison  administration  is 
judged  by  the  amount  of  net  revenue  in  the  State.  There  are  no  southern 
organizations  for  the  study  of  criminality  and  no  State  bureaus  of  charity. 
In  fact,  one  State  often  does  not  know  the  systems  of  its  neighbor.  These 
conditions  are  fatal  to  the  application  of  any  scientific  moasui'es  and  preclude 
the  study  of  the  (-auses  of  crime.  So  long  as  a  State's  criminals  bring  it  a  net 
revenue  of  from  $.30,000  to  S1.5().(XX)  a  year  it  is  difficult  to  introduce  methods 
leading  to  reform  and  to  decrease  of  crime. 

Let  me  ask  what  is  bringing  about  this  ratio  of  increase  in 
crime? 

First.  To  my  mind,  it  is  the  methods  employed  in  the  punisli- 
ment  of  crime. 
r,<m 


14 

Second.  Tlie  dawning  realization  that  the  white  man  intends 
by  indirection  to  annul  the  civil  rights  guaranteed  the  negro  by 
the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  amendments. 

Third.  The  cruel  limitation  realized  by  the  colored  man  who 
has  been  educated  or  who  has  educated  himself,  when  he  realizes 
that  notwithstanding  his  intellectual  qualities,  no  matter  how 
great  or  how  superior  to  those  of  his  neighbors,  his  color  compels 
him  forever  to  herd  with  the  lowest  of  his  people. 

Is  it  fair  through  education  and  the  consequent  knowlege  of 
the  rights  guaranteed  under  the  Constitution  as  it  stands  to-day 
to  raise  up  and  give  the  colored  man,  like  the  children  of  Israel, 
a  glimpse  of  the  promised  land— civil  rights— only  to  drag  him 
back  int'j  a  position  of  hopelessness? 

If  the  negroes  are  going  back  as  a  result  of  education,  so  are 
we.  What  example,  may  I  ask,  do  we  give  of  civilized  methods 
as  the  result  of  over  two  thousand  years  of  education  and  conse- 
quent supposed  re.iuement?  We  institute  the  stockade  principle, 
where  a  man  is  worse  than  a  slave;  we  prevent  him  by  intimida- 
tion from  exercising  the  civil  rights  which  we  know  belong  to  him 
under  the  instrument  which  made  us  what  we  are.  When  a 
crime  is  committed  we  follow  him  like  a  wild  beast,  with  dogs. 
When  captured  we  burn  him  alive,  like  the  Indians  did  their  cap- 
tives during  the  early  days  of  this  country,  and  at  the  same  time 
we  are  admitting  the  Indians  to  citizenship. 

Professor  Frances  Kellor,  in  an  article  on  the  criminal  negro, 
says: 

The  statement  is  often  seen  that  crime  has  increased  among  the  negroes 
since  the  war.  That  is  a  matter  of  no  surprise,  because  increased  freedom 
of  an  ignorant  people  invariably  means  increased  violations  of  law.  In  the 
second  place,  acts  sanctioned  in  slavery,  as  adultery  and  small  thefts,  were  not 
then  considered  as  crimes.  Third,  there  were  no  records  kept  before  the  war, 
so  no  close  comparisons  are  possible.  Fourth,  Gince  the  freeing  of  the  negro 
penalties  for  certain  crimes  have  been  increased.  There  are  no  agencies  in 
the  South  for  reforming  criminals,  and  wayward  children  are  not  protected 
as  in  the  North.  For  these  reasons  increase  of  crime  does  not  mean  deterio- 
ration of  the  race,  but  it  is  one  phase  of  its  attempt  to  meet  new  conditions 
and  exterral  forces.  In  the  Xortli  crime  is  increasing  among  the  negroes, 
but  there  also  they  are  meeting  a  most  complex  and  advanced  civilization, 
for  which  they  have  but  a  slight  preparation. 

A  more  exhaustive  study  of  criminalty,  carried  out  along  lines  some  of 
which  have  been  indxated  in  the  preceding  articles,  would  tend  to  lead  to 
conclu.sions  having  this  import: 

1.  Climate,  soil,  food,  and  economic  and  social  conditions  are  essential  ele- 
mer^ts  in  any  study  of  criminality,  and  by  "social  conditions"  are  meant  all 
'environmental  factors.    Until  these  influences  are  estimated  and  moasui'es 
5998 


15 

are  based  upon  the  recoguition  of  them,  no  great  reduction  in  the  amount  ol 
crime  can  be  anticipated.  With  reference  to  these  the  negi'o  is  more  disad- 
vantageously  placed  than  is  any  other  class  in  America. 

2.  The  laws  and  penal  institutions  in  the  South  nre  not  conduete  1  with  a 
view  to  decreasing  crime,  but  to  care  for  the  prisoner  and  secure  revenx:e. 
Preventive  measures,  especially  with  reference  to  children,  are  just  finding 
I  place.  Experience  has  shown  that  the  intitulional  system  is  of  great  im- 
portance in  both  prevention  and  reformation. 

3.  The  measurements  and  tests  made  upon  a  limited  number  do  not  reveal 
physical  and  mental  conditions  that  should  discourage  efforts  in  education 
and  development. 

4.  The  environments  in  the  South  are  favorable  to  the  commission  of  crime 
by  negroes.  It  is  impossible  to  estimate  the  persistency  of  racial  traits  or  of 
the  limitations,  mental  or  physical,  imposed  by  racial  development,  until  a 
parallel  environment  is  removed;  that  is,  the  environment  must  be  shown 
to  be  of  such  a  nature  that  it  offers  every  oijportunity  for  development  and 
improvement.  In  no  phase  of  negroe.s"  life,  domestic,  social,  industrial,  po- 
litical, or  religious,  does  this  appear  to  be  the  case. 

Even  if.  as  it  is  a.ssumed,  crime  has  increased  among  the  negroes. 
why  should  education  be  blamed  for  this?  Surely  this  is  an  un- 
fair conclusion.  I  think  everyone  will  admit  that  education  has 
been  of  benefit  to  a  great  many  negroes.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
some  have  not  profited  by  the  education  that  they  have  received, 
is  it  fair  that  we  should  say  that  the  education  of  the  negro  is  a 
mistake  and  deprive  all  negroes  of  education? 

On  the  l'2th  of  last  I'ebruary,  at  a  meeting  in  New  York,  the 

question  of  negro  industrial  education  and  its  bearing  on  the  race 

problem  was  discussed.     Andrew  Carnegie  presided.     President 

Eliot,    of    Harvard,   was    among    the    speakers.     Ex-President 

Grover  Cleveland,  who  has  some  standing  in  this  country,  though 

he  is  not  believed  in  by  the  latter-day  Democracy,  sent  a  letter, 

in  which  he  said: 

I  am  so  completely  convinced  of  the  importance  of  this  cause,  as  it  is  re- 
lated to  the  s<3lution  of  a  problem  no  patriotic  citizen  should  neglect,  that  1 
look  upon  every  attempt  to  stimulate  popular  interest  and  activity  in  its  be- 
half as  a  duty  of  citizenship. 

Booker  T.  Washington,  whom   the  gentleman  from  Georgia 

would  disfranchise  because  of  his  color,  was  the  leading  speaker 

at  this  convocation  of  great  men.     I  quote  from  his  speech  a  few 

paragraphs  which  were  not,  but  might  have  been,  spoken  in 

reply  to  the  gentleman  from  Georgia: 

After  making  careful  inquiry  I  can  not  find  a  half  a  dozen  cases  of  a  man 
or  woman  who  has  completed  a  full  course  of  educatioii  in  any  of  our  repu- 
table institutions  like  Hampton,  Tuskegeo,  Fisk",  or  Atlanta,  who  are  im- 
prisoned. The  records  of  the  S'jutli  show  that  'JO  per  centof  the  colored  yeo- 
ple  imprisoned  are  without  knowl  dge  of  trades  and  (il  per  cent  are  illiterate. 

But  it  has  been  said  tiiat  the  negro  pi'oves  economically  valueless  in  pro 


16 

portion  as  he  is  educated.  Let  us  see.  All  will  agree  that  the  negro  in  Vir- 
ginia, for  exauijile,  began  life  forty  years  ago  in  complete  poverty,  scarcely 
owning  clothing  or  a  day's  food.  The  reports  of  the  State  auditor  show  the 
negro  to-day  owns  at  least  one  twenty-sixth  of  the  real  estate  in  that  Com- 
monwealth exclusive  of  his  holdings  in  towns  and  cities,  and  that  in  the  coun- 
ties east  of  the  Blue  Ridge  Mountains  he  owns  one-sixteenth.  In  Middlesex 
County  he  owns  one-sixth;  in  Hanover,  one-fourth.  In  Georgia  the  official 
records  show  that,  largely  through  the  influence  of  educated  men  and  women 
from  Atlanta  schools  and  others,  thenegr.es  added  last  year  $1,536,000  to  their 
taxable  property,  making  the  total  amount  upon  which  they  pay  taxes  in 
that  State  alone  816,700,000. 

Few  people  I'ealize  under  the  most  difficult  and  trying  circumstances,  dur- 
ing the  last  forty  years,  it  has  been  the  educated  negro  who  counseled  pa- 
tience, self-control,  and  thus  averted  a  war  of  races.  Every  negro  going  out 
of  our  institutions  properly  educated  becomes  a  link  in  the  chain  that  shall 
forever  bind  the  two  races  together  in  all  essentials  of  life. 

Thomas  Nelson  Page,  who  has  made  a  deep  study  of  the  negro 

problem,  says: 

It  is  from  the  educated  negro,  that  is,  the  negro  who  is  more  enlightened 
than  the  general  body  of  his  race,  that  order  must  come.  The  ignorance, 
venality,  and  superstition  of  the  average  negro  are  dangerous  to  us.  Educa- 
tion will  divide  them  and  uplift  them. 

If  it  is  true  that,  as  a  distinguished  southern  statesman  has  re- 
marked, "A  smart  nigger  is  a  bad  nigger,"  we  must  change  all 
our  opinions  of  the  value  of  an  education.  For  such  a  conclu- 
sion would  involve  whites  as  deeply  as  blacks.  If  education 
tends  to  depravity,  debauchery,  and  an  increase  of  criminality, 
then  we  have  too  many  schools,  too  many  colleges,  too  many 
books,  too  many  newspapers,  and,  for  that  matter,  too  many  edu- 
cated Members  of  Congress. 

It  is  not  alone  in  the  Southern  States  that  the  negro  is  unfairly 
treated  in  the  enforcement  of  law;  it  is  also  true  that  in  the  North- 
em  States  courts  and  juries  are  often  his  enemies,  always  ready 
to  exaggerate  his  faults  and  ignore  his  virtues. 

The  negro,  especially  the  ambitious  and  aspiring  negro,  is  treated 
very  much  as  the  Jew  is  treated  by  the  ignorant  peasantry  of 
Russia.  Everywhere  prejudice  tracks  him  and  defeats  him: 
everywhere  he  is  more  or  less  looked  upon  as  necessarily  an  infe- 
rior and  is  discriminated  against  in  many  of  the  walks  of  life. 

The  Rev.  Edgar  G.  Murphy,  secretary  of  the  Southern  Society, 

which  holds  a  conference  on  race  problems  at  Montgomery,  Ala., 

in  May.  in  a  recent  address  delivered  in  Philadelphia,  said: 

The  general  problem  of  the  negro's  legal  rights,  his  rights  before  the 

southern  jury  and  before  the  average  coiu-t,  presents  our  subject,  however, 

under  one  of  its  darkest  aspects.    It  is  hard  for  the  negro  to  get  justice.    The 

evil  is  not  easy  ot  remedy,  but  southern  men  are  working  upon  it,  and 

5'J98 


17 

sonthprn  men  themselves  will  right  it,  in  so  far  as  it  can  be  righted.  I  need 
hardly  tell  you  that  this  evil  is  not  peculiar  to  the  South.  As  Prof.  W.  P. 
Wilcox,  of  Cornell,  chief  statistician  in  the  Census  Office  and  a  northern  man, 
has  indicated  in  a  recent  paper  upon  negro  criminality,  there  are  more  con- 
victions of  negroes  for  crime  at  the  North,  in  proportion  to  the  number  of 
the  negro  population,  than  at  the  South.  The  result  is  due,  I  think,  not  only 
to  the  negro's  weaknesses,  but  to  the  popular  prejudice  everywhere  against 
an  inferior  race. 

A  short  time  ago  a  distinguished  statesman  of  the  other  House 
declared  that  there  was  more  crime  in  New  Eiigland  in  proportion 
to  the  population  than  in  his  own  State,  and  he  proved  it  to  his 
satisfaction  by  showing  that  there  were  more  jails  and  State 
prisons.  In  the  same  way.  doubtless,  he  would  prove  that  New 
York  furnishes  a  larger  ijroportion  of  lunatics  than  his  own  State 
becaiise  it  builds  more  lunatic  asylums.  In  the  same  way  he  would 
.  prove  that  the  people  of  Massachiisetts  are  more  illiterate  than 
the  people  of  Georgia  by  showing  that  the  people  of  Massachu- 
setts had  the  most  schoolhouses. 

I  am  not  one  of  those  who  believe  that  the  negro  race,  any  more 
than  any  other  race,  can  be  taken  up  bodily  as  it  were  and  put 
upon  a  plane  of  high  civilization  and  usefulness.  It  must  depend 
absolutely  upon  the  individual  negro,  as  it  depends  upon  the  indi- 
vidual Anglo-Saxon,  or  those  of  other  extraction,  as  to  whether 
they  will  rise  and  become  capable  of  assuming  a  place  in  the  af- 
fairs of  men  rather  than  remain  in  oblivion. 

Governor  Vardaman,  of  Missi.esippi,  made  a  crusade  through 
the  North  in  opposition  to  negro  education.  Here  is  a  choice 
sample  of  his  refined,  classic  style: 

I  am  opposed  to  the  nigger's  voting,  it  matters  not  what  his  advertised 
moral  and  mental  qualifications  may  be.  I  am  just  as  much  opposed  to 
Booker  "Washington,  with  all  his  Anglo-Saxon  reenf orcement,  voting,  as  I  am 
to  voting  by  the  cocoanut-headed,  chocolate-colored  typical  little  coon,  Andy 
Dotson,  who  blacks  my  shoes  every  morning.  Neither  one  is  fit  to  perform 
the  supreme  functions  of  citizenship. 

While  I  admire  the  ability  lately  shown  by  the  distinguished 
governor  to  uphold  the  majesty  of  the  law  in  his  State,  yet  I 
might  suggest  that  this  elegant  quotation  does  not  demonstrate  a 
vast  superiority  over  the  gentleman  referred  to  in  the  quotation. 

The  same  distinguished  governor,  however,  is  at  least  consist- 
ent, for,  having  conducted  his  campaign  upon  the  platform  of  ceas- 
ing to  educate  the  negro,  he  has  during  the  past  few  days  vetoed 
a  bill  carrying  an  appropriation  for  a  negro  school.     We  have 

5998 2 


18 

here  what  might  be  likened  to  a  very  elementary  problem.  A 
certain  State  does  not  disfranchise  the  negro  on  account  of  his 
color,  but  simply  imposes  an  educational  test,  which  of  course 
requires  that  for  a  negro  to  vote  he  shall  have  the  necessary  edu- 
cation. To  obtain  this  education  he  must  goto  school.  Suppose 
that  all  the  bills  carrying  the  negro-school  appropriations  are 
vetoed,  then  we  have  "no  school  funds:"  therefore  no  schools,  no 
opportunity  for  learning:  therefore,  illiteracy,  or  quod  erat  dem- 
onstrandum— disfranchisement. 

Mr.  Chairman,  if  I  were  a  Southerner  born  and  bred,  and  felt 
toward  the  negro  as  Governor  Vardaman  and  the  gentleman  from 
Georgia  feel.  I  would  1  e  in  favor  of  sacrificing  some  of  the  repre- 
sentation of  my  State  in  Congress  to  achieve  my  purpose  honestly. 
I  would  agree  with  Governor  Hampton  when  he  said  that  to  get 
the  negro  out  of  politics  he  would  gladly  give  up  the  representa- 
tion based  on  his  vote. 

A  question  has  been  raised  as  to  a  possible  social  equality  be- 
tween the  white  and  the  black  races.  In  answer  to  that  I  can 
not  do  better  than  quote  from  the  best  exponent  of  the  best 
thought  and  education  among  the  negro  race  in  this  country, 
Booker  T.  Washington,  who  says: 

In  all  things  social  as  separate  as  the  fingers,  yet  one  as  the  hand  in  all 
things  essential  to  mutual  progress. 

To  begin  with,  social  equality  no  more  exists  in  this  country, 
either  in  the  North  or  the  South,  among  whites  than  it  does  in 
any  other  country.  The  man  himself,  or  the  woman  herself,  is 
the  judge  of  his  or  her  equal. 

Social  equality  has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  civil  rights. 
It  is  a  thing  separate  and  apart,  and  therefore  nothing  to  do  with 
this  question. 

The  corner  stone  upon  which  the  democratic  institutions  of 
this  country  ai-e  founded,  the  hope  of  all  Americans,  whether 
they  be  native  born  or  naturalized,  white  or  black,  is  based  and 
exemplified  in  the  general  principle  enunciated  by  President 
Roosevelt  when  he  declared: 

I  do  not  intend  to  appoint  any  unfit  man  to  office.  So  far  as  I  legitimately 
can  I  shall  always  endeavor  to  pay  regard  to  the  -wishes  and  feelings  of  the 
people  of  each  1  reality,  but  I  can  not  consent  to  take  the  position  that  the 
door  of  hope,  the  door  of  opportunity,  is  to  be  shut  upon  any  man,  no  matter 
how  worthy,  purely  upon  the  grounds  of  race  or  color.  Such  an  attitude 
would,  according  to  my  convictions,  be  fundamentally  wrong. 
5998 


19 


And  he  then  proceeds: 


If,  as  you  hold,  the  great  bulk  of  the  colored  people  are  not  yet  fit  in  point 
of  character  and  influence  to  hold  su  -h  positions,  it  seems  to  me  that  it  is 
worth  while  putting  a  premium  upon  the  effort  among  them  to  achieve  the 
character  and  standing  which  will  tit  them. 

No  fair-minded  man  can  help  but  admire  the  frankness  of  the 
President  when  he  asserts  in  no  uncertain  language  that  it  is  a 
good  thing  to  make  the  negro  realize  that  if  he  shows  in  marked 
degree  the  qualities  of  good  citizenship  he  can  look  forward  to 
and  hope  for  recognition. 

Again.  I  say  if  the  statistics  quoted  by  the  gentleman  are  cor- 
rect, then  there  must  be  as  much  radically  wrong  with  the 
method  of  education  employed  as  there  is  with  the  opportunities 
given  them  of  exercising  the  rights  guaranteed  to  them  under  the 
fourteenth  and  fifteenth  amendments.  Personally  I  do  not  be- 
lieve in  higher  education  for  whites  or  blacks,  except  where  ex- 
ceptional cases  are  found.  I  think  that  the  three  R"s — "reading, 
'riting,  and  'rithmetic  " — as  the  old  schoolmaster  used  to  say,  to- 
gether with  geography,  United  States  history,  and  a  good  manual 
training,  would  make  us  a  stronger  nation.  Instead  of  the  com- 
pulsory military  service  in  vogue  in  European  powers,  I  should 
like  to  see  tried  a  compulsory  trade  service. 

I  heartily  agree  with  Professor  N.  Southgate  Shaler,  of  Har- 
vard University,  that  it  is  not  to  be  denied  that  the  task  of  devel- 
oping the  latent  powers  of  the  negro  race,  which,  in  his  opinion, 
are  far  greater  than  is  generally  believed,  is  very  serious.  He 
says: 

It  means  a  certain  amount  of  technical  education  of  a  very  gi-eat  number 
of  the  children  of  ten  million  people.    *    *    * 

Yet  this  need  not  affright  us,  for  we  may  be  sure  that  this,  like  all  other 
well-directed  education,  will  be  a  very  good  investment  of  public  money,  for 
it  will  bear  fruit  in  money  as  well  as  other  values.  Every  black  man,  other- 
wise to  be  a  mere  plodding  laborer,  who  by  such  training  is  lifted  to  the 
grade  of  a  skilled  artisan,  will  have  his  value  to  the  State  increased  several 
fold.  His  annual  earnings  as  a"  field  hand  "  will  not  exceed  $150;  as  a  skilled 
blacksmith,  cai-penter,  or  machinist,  they  should  be  at  least  $400,  and  in 
something  like  this  measure  his  value  will  be  advanced  by  his  training. 

The  negro  must  not  imagine  that  simply  because  he  is  a  negro 
those  who  would  befriend  him  among  the  whites  will  step  in  and 
protect  him  if  he  commits  a  crime.  On  the  other  hand,  the  whites 
mu9t  not  impose  unjust  restrictions,  unjust  laws,  and  unjust  sen- 
tences upon  the  negro  simply  because  he  is  a  negro.     To  do  so  is 


20 

undemocratic,  un-American,  and  in  direct  opposition  to  the  prin- 
ciples upon  which  this  Government  was  founded  and  opposed  to 
the  welcome  which  we  have  extended  to  the  oppressed  of  all 
nations. 

In  the  struggle  which  faces  their  race  negroes  should  regard 
any  one  of  their  color  who  commits  a  crime  not  only  an  offender 
against  the  law,  but  an  enemy  of  his  owai  people,  and  instead  of 
ranging  themselves  on  the  side  of  the  offender  do  all  in  their  power 
to  aid  justice. 

To  lessen  the  steady  growth  of  lynching,  which  has  so  increased 
in  frequency  as  to  be  appalling  to  the  farsighted,  sober-thinking 
members  of  the  community,  I  would  suggest  that  the  remedy  ad- 
vocated by  Justice  Brewer,  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States,  of  doing  away  with  the  right  of  appeal  in  criminal  cases 
be  at  once  adopted  by  all  the  States.  The  distinguished  justice 
says: 

What  can  be  done  to  stay  this  epidemic  of  lynching?  One  thing  is  the  es- 
tablishment of  a  gri-eater  confidence  in  the  summary  and  certain  punishment 
of  the  criminal.  Men  are  afraid  of  law's  delays  and  the  uncertainty  of  its 
results.  Not  that  they  doubt  the  integrity  of  the  judges,  but  they  know  that 
the  law  abounds  with  technical  rules,  and  that  appellate  courts  will  often  re- 
verse a  judgment  of  conviction  for  a  disregard  of  such  rules,  notwithstand- 
ing a  full  belief  in  the  guilt  of  the  accused.  If  all  were  certain  that  the  guilty 
ones  would  be  promptly  tried  and  punished,  the  inducement  to  lynch  would 
be  largely  taken  away. 

In  an  address  which  I  delivered  before  the  American  Bar  Association  at 
Detroit  some  years  since  I  advocated  doing  away  with  appeals  in  criminal 
cases.  It  did  not  meet  the  favor  of  the  association,  but  I  still  believe  in  its 
wisdom.  For  nearly  a  hundred  years  there  was  no  appeal  from  the  judg- 
ment of  conviction  of  criminal  cases  in  our  Federal  courts  and  no  review  ex- 
cept in  a  few  cases,  in  which,  two  judges  sitting,  a  conference  of  opinion  on 
a  question  of  law  was  certified  to  the  Supreme  Court. 

In  England  the  rule  has  been  that  there  was  no  appeal  in  criminal  cases, 
although  a  question  of  doubt  might  be  reserved  by  the  presiding  judge  for 
the  consideration  of  his  brethren.  E.  J.  Phelps,  who  was  minister  to  Eng- 
land during  Mr.  Cleveland's  first  Administration,  once  told  me  that  while  he 
was  there  only  two  cases  were  so  reserved.  Does  anyone  doubt  that  justice 
was  fully  administered  by  the  English  courts? 

It  is  said  in  extenuation  of  lyncliing  in  case  of  rape  that  it  is  an  additional 
cruelty  to  the  unfortunate  victim  to  compel  her  to  go  upon  the  witness 
stand  and,  in  the  presence  of  a  mixed  audience,  tell  the  story  of  her  wrongs, 
especially  when  she  may  be  subject  to  cross-examination  by  an  overzealous 
counsel.  I  do  not  belittle  this  matter,  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  often 
the  unfortunate  victim  never  lives  to  tell  the  story  of  her  wrongs;  and  if  she 
does  survive  she  must  tell  it  to  some,  and  the  whole  community  knows  the 
fact.  Even  in  the  court  room  any  high-minded  judge  wiU  stay  counsel  from 
any  unnecessary  cross-examination,  and  finally,  if  any  lawyer  should  attempt 
it,  the  community  may  treat  him  as  an  outcast. 

I  can  but  think  that  if  the  community  felt  that  the  criminal  would  cer- 
tainly receive  the  punishment  he  deserves,  and  receive  it  soon,  the  eager- 


21 

ness  for  lynching  would  disappear  and  mobs,  whose  gatherings  too  often 
mean  not  merely  the  destruction  of  jails  and  other  property,  but  also  the 
loss  of  innocent  lives,  would  greatly  diminish  in  number. 

One  thing  is  certain,  the  tendency  to  lynching  is  to  undermine  the  respect 
for  the  law,  and  unless  it  be  checked  we  need  not  be  astonished  if  it  be  re- 
sorted to  for  all  kinds  of  offenses,  and  oftentimes  innocent  men  suffer  for 
wrongs  committed  by  others. 

Our  duty  toward  the  negro  race  would  seem  to  me  to  be  one  of 
encouragement  and  protection — encouraging  those  who,  having 
made  the  effort,  have  achieved  success  in  spite  of  the  difficulties 
under  which  they  necessarily  labored,  owing  to  the  natural  limita- 
tions of  a  race  scarcely  three  hundred  years  from  savagery;  pro- 
tecting those  who,  having  less  ability,  are  not  given  an  opportunity 
or  perhaps  are  not  as  fortunate  as  their  fellows.  We  should  not 
forget  that  it  was  through  the  labor  of  these  people  that  many 
of  what  were  the  richest  States  in  this  country  were  raised  from 
their  original  primeval  wilderness  and  made  to  blossom  like  a  rose. 

The  negro  race  on  its  side  should  realize  what  has  been  done 
for  it — no  matter  what  its  stifferings  during  slavery — in  having 
received  in  less  than  three  hundred  years  a  civilization  which  it 
has  taken  other  races  ages  to  acquire.  The  race  must  realize  its 
own  weaknesses  and  its  own  shortcomings  consequent  upon  the 
comparatively  few  years  which  it  has  enjoyed  ciWlization.  It  must 
realize  that  the  whites  are  as  necessary  to  the  negro  race  as  the 
negro  race  in  certain  States  is  necessary  to  the  white.  The 
negroes  should  not  imagine  and  harbor  fancied  wrongs,  and  those 
among  them  who  are  gifted  with  good  sense  and  sober  judgment 
should  exercise  their  best  efforts  to  wipe  out  such  a  spirit,  and, 
particularly  in  success,  set  an  example  of  modest,  conservative 
behavior.  The  negro  race  should  also  remember  that  tha  war 
which  made  them  free  caused  untold  suffering  and  in  some  cases 
made  poor  those  to  whom,  although  they  were  their  slaves,  they 
owe  the  civilization  which  they  now  possess. 

Compare  the  colored  people,  whom  it  is  quietly  proposed  to 
disfranchise,  with  certain  clas.ses  of  foreigners  who  come  to  our 
shores,  ignorant  of  our  laws,  ignorant  of  our  language,  ignoraiftt 
of  our  institutions,  who  are  eagerly  naturalized  sometimes  even 
before  the  legal  qualifications  have  been  quasi  conformed  to. 

Let  me  refer  the  House  to  a  carefully  prepared  list  of  the  prop- 
erty interests  of  those  affected  by  the  amendments  the  gentleman 
would  annul,  which  I  shall  print:  and  in  this  connection  let  me 


22 

suggest  another  thought.  By  repealing  the  fourteenth  and  fif- 
teenth amendments,  at  once  all  the  negroes  in  the  United  States 
would  be  disfranchised.  Of  all  the  farms  at  the  present  time  in 
the  United  States,  according  to  the  census  of  1900, 13  per  cent  are 
owned  or  operated  by  negro  farmers,  and  according  to  Mr.  Tal- 
cott  Williams,  editor  of  the  Philadelphia  Press,  the  amount  of 
property  now  owned  by  the  negroes  in  this  country  amounts  to 
almost  $500,000,000. 

Now,  by  the  resolutions  introduced  by  the  gentleman  from 
Georgia  and  others,  it  is  proposed  to  disfranchis©  all  the  owners 
of  this  property.  I  would  like  to  ask  what  were  the  causes  which 
led  up  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence;  what  it  was  that 
our  forefathers  fought  for  during  1776?  Let  me  suggest  that  the 
initial  cause  for  which  we  fought  was  that  there  should  be  "no 
taxation  without  representation,"  and  there  can  be  no  representa- 
tion without  the  right  to  exercise  the  franchise.  Direct  repre- 
sentation of  those  governed  in  the  governing  body  is  the  keystone 
of  our  democratic  institutions.  If  our  Government  is  not  a  rep- 
resentative government  it  is  nothing. 

I  can  not  agree  with  those  who  advance  the  argument  that  the 
South  should  be  left  to  solve  the  negro  problem,  for  the  reason 
that  when  States  enact  legislation  affecting  the  political  status  of 
large  numbers  of  its  citizens  of  voting  age  the  result  of  such  leg- 
islation is  national  in  its  effect,  and,  therefore,  must  at  once  be- 
come the  object  of  concern  to  all  sections  of  the  country. 

One  word  in  regard  to  the  fourteenth  amendment.  In  the  four- 
teenth amendment  the  very  use  of  the  word  "shall,"  in  prescrib- 
ing the  results  to  happen  when  certain  conditions  arose,  leaves  no 
discretion  to  Congress.  It  is  absolutely  mandatory  upon  Congress 
to  take  the  course  prescribed. 

It  has  been  urged  that  some  Northern  States  have  restrictions  on 
the  suffrage.  The  object  of  the  Crumpacker  resolution  is  to  have 
a  full  and  fair  investigation  of  the  election  laws  of  all  the  States. 
for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  to  what  extent  manhood  citizen- 
ship has  been  disfranchised.  If  the  result  of  the  investigation 
should  be  such  as  to  justify  it,  the  purpose  is  to  urge  a  reduction 
of  the  representation  of  the  disfranchising  States  in  accordance 
with  the  requirements  of  the  Constitution. 

If,  after  this  investigation,  it  is  discovered  that  these  other 


23 

States  restrict  the  franchise  contrary  to  the  Constitution,  then 
their  representation  would  have  to  be  reduced  accordingly.  Why 
this  dread  of  such  an  investigation?  If  what  is  urged  is  true,  the 
Northern  States  may  be  as  seriously  affected  as  the  Southern 
States.  I  have  not  heard  a  protest  against  such  an  investigation 
from  the  gentleman  from  Connecticut,  for  instance,  or  from  the 
gentleman  from  Ohio,  or  from  members  of  the  Pennsylvania 
delegation. 

In  the  beginning  of  my  remarks  I  said  that  I  would  endeavor  to 
find,  if  any  existed,  the  reasons  why  what  was  declared  in  1879 
by  the  leaders  of  both  parties  best  qualified  to  judge  ought  to  have 
been  done  and  ought  to  be  maintained  in  relation  to  the  franchise 
should  now  be  changed. 

After  this  review  of  the  subject  the  only  reason  which  I  can 
find  for  the  introduction  of  the  resolutions  of  my  friend  from 
Georgia  is  that  certain  States  have  done  through  legislative  en- 
actment that  which  the  statesmen  of  the  days  of  '79  did  not  in 
their  wildest  dreams  imagine  would  be  done,  and  that  they  now 
dread  the  results  which  the  statesmen  of  both  parties  of  those 
days  declared  would  inevitably  follow — namely,  reduction  of 
representation. 

I  feel  that  this  is  not  a  party  question,  but  one  which  concerns 
the  integrity  of  the  Constitution  itself.  It  has  been  suggested 
that  the  State  of  Pennsylvania,  like  some  others  of  the  Northern 
States,  imposes  restrictions  upon  the  franchise.  I  for  one  do  not 
propose  to  remain  silent  and  inactive  under  the  imputation,  which 
must  necessarily  follow,  that  the  Pennsylvania  delegation  ought 
to  be  reduced  and  that  some  of  the  delegation  as  it  now  stands 
are  occupying  seats  in  this  Chamber  con'  rary  to  the  direct  man- 
dates of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

As  I  remember,  the  gentlemen  representing  their  several  States, 
Kke  myself,  on  the  9th  day  of  November,  when  the  name  of  the 
State  which  they  represented  was  called,  left  their  seats,  went 
down  and  ranged  themselves  before  the  bar  of  the  House,  raised 
their  right  hand  and  gave  solemn,  audible  assent  to  the  oath  of 
ofBce  which  was  read  by  the  distinguished  Speaker  of  the  House. 

Surely,  gentlemen,  we  all  realize  the  sacred  character  of  an 
oath;  surely  we  realize  that  when  with  uplifted  hand  we  call 


24 

upon  God  to  witness,  we  intended  to  convey  that  we  subscribe  ab- 
Bolutely  and  entirely  to  what  we  swear  to.  However,  we  either 
failed  to  appreciate  the  solemnity  of  the  oath  and  all  it  contained, 
or  else  we  must  have  satisfied  our  consciences  by  making  a  mental 
reservation  in  regard  to  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  amendments 
of  that  Constitution  which  we  swore  to  uphold;  otherwise  the 
resolutions  introduced  by  several  of  the  gentlemen  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Chamber,  and  the  necessity  for  which  has  been  so  elo- 
quently defended  by  the  gentleman  from  Georgia,  would  not  be 
necessary. 

By  the  introduction  of  these  various  resolutions  for  the  repeal 
of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  amendments  we  are  asked  to  wipe 
out  that  part  of  the  Constitution  which  cost  the  country  in  life, 
suffering,  and  treasure  a  thousandfold  more  than  was  suffered  by 
those  who  framed  and  fought  for  the  original  instrument. 

According  to  an  oflScial  estimate  which  I  have  just  received 
from  the  Record  and  Pension  Office,  2,200,000  northern  and  south- 
ern men  were  enlisted  in  all  the  different  branches  of  the  service 
during  the  civil  war — a  number  almost  incredible  when  we  stop 
for  a  moment  to  think  about  it.  Of  these,  359,200  actually  died 
in  the  field — an  army  almost  double  the  size  of  that  at  present 
sent  to  the  front  by  Japan  and  larger  by  50,000  than  the  army 
with  which  the  Czar  of  Russia  expects  to  crush  the  power  of  the 
Mikado. 

The  struggle  which  these  vast  armies  of  men  engaged  in  for 
four  long  years  resulted  in  what?  The  very  changes  in  the  Consti- 
tution which,  together  with  the  thirteenth  amendment,  it  is  now 
quietly  proposed  to  annul.  Would  not  we,  as  legislators,  both 
those  on  this  side  of  the  Chamber  and  those  on  the  other,  particu- 
larly the  gentlemen  who  gave  their  personal  services  during  that 
great  struggle,  find  ourselves  in  the  position  of  the  young  Napo- 
leon on  the  battlefield  of  Wagram,  in  the  play  of  L'Aiglon,  when 
he  seemed  to  hear  the  groans  and  cries  of  those  who  had  fallen  in 
the  long  fierce  Napoleonic  war.s?  Would  not  we  from  Pennsyl- 
vania, who  sent  340.000  men  to  the  front,  and  would  not  those 
from  South  Carolina,  who  sent  almost  an  equal  number;  would 
not  the  Representatives  from  New  York,  who  sent  almost  450,000; 
would  not  the  Representatives  from  Ohio,  Illinois,  Indiana,  North 

5998 


Carolina,  Georgia,  Mississippi,  and  other  States,  all  hear  and  be 
pursued  with  the  groans  and  cries  of  their  proportion  of  dead, 
culminating  in  one  great  outburst  of  "  Why  did  we  fight?  Why 
have  we  died?"  If  the  one  great  initial  result  of  what  was  sacri- 
ficed and  suffered  is  so  easily  to  be  undone? 


APPENDIX. 


STATISTICS  AS  TO  NEGRO  FARMERS. 


The  census  of  1900  contains  abundant  and  indisputable  evidence  of  the  great 
progrress  in  material  prosperity  by  the  negro  agriculturists  during  the  past 
few  years  The  act  of  Congi'oss  providing  for  the  previous  census — the  census 
of  1890— directed  that  statistics  concerning  the  negro  farmers  should  be  in- 
cluded in  the  enumeration  at  that  time.  Accordingly  reports  on  that  subject 
were  collected  in  the  field;  but,  unfortunately,  for  some  reason  not  stated, 
they  were  not  tabulated  and  published.  Therefore  there  is  no  record  on  the 
subject  prior  to  1900  with  which  a  comparison  could  be  instituted  showing 
the  exact  measure  of  the  progress  of  the  negro  farmers  during  the  last  decade 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  The  figures  of  the  Twelfth  Census,  however,  af- 
ford proof  enough,  without  comparisons,  of  the  gratifying  growth  of  the 
negro  race  in  the  United  States  in  the  important  line  of  agricultural  industry 

The  actual  number  of  negro  farmers  in  the  United  States  is  not  given  in 
the  census,  but  the  number  of  farms  owned  or  operated  by  negroes  is  given; 
and  as  in  almost  aU  cases  the  farm  is  owned  or  leased  by  a  single  individual, 
the  number  of  negro  farmers  in  the  country  may  be  assumed  to  be  nearly 
the  same  as  the  number  of  farms  run  by  negroes. 

The  number  of  farms  in  the  United  States  operated  by  negro  farmers,  ac- 
cording to  the  census  of  1900,  was,  in  June  of  that  year,  746,717,  or  13  per  cent 
of  the  whole  number.  In  the  Southern  States  the  percentage  was  much 
greater,  and  naturally  it  is  in  those  States  that  the  great  majority  of  negro 
farmers  reside  and  operate.  In  fact,  the  negro  forms  such  a  small  proportion 
of  the  agriculturist  element  in  the  North  and  West  that  it  is  hardly  worth 
while  to  dwell  upon  the  statistics  for  that  part  of  the  country. 

Turning  to  the  South,  we  find  the  number  of  farms  operated  by  negroes, 
as  compared  with  the  whole  number  of  farms,  and  the  percentages,  to  be  as 
follows: 


State. 

Whole 

number  of 

farms. 

Operated 
by  ne- 
groes. 

Percent- 
age of  ne- 
gro farms. 

Virginia 

167,886 
224.637 
155.355 
224,691 
41),  814 
223,2:?0 
220,803 
115,969 
352,190 
178,694 

44,795 
53,9!'6 
85, 381 
82,823 
13,521 
94,()ti9 

12«,:i-)l 

5S.096 
65.473 
46,978 

28.7 

North  Carolina 

24.3 

South  Carolina 

55.0 

Georgia 

36  9 

Florida 

3:5.1 

Alabama 

43  1 

Mississippi 

58.2 

Louisiana 

50.1 

Texas 

18.5 

Arkansas  

26.3 

Thus  it  is  seen  that  in  these  ten  Southern  States,  constituting  the  old 
Southern  Confederacy,  the  percentage  of  negro  farmers  and  farms  in  1900 
was  about  37,  and  that  in  three  of  those  States  the  negro  farmej's  actually 
constituted  more  than  one-half, the  total  number  of  farmers. 
5998 


26 

It  may  be  noticed,  in  passing,  that  of  the  negro  farms  of  the  United  States 
70.5  per  cent  are  cotton  farms,  while  6.9  per  cent  are  hay  and  gi-ain  farms, 
4.1  per  cent  live-stock  farms,  and  2.0  per  cent  tobacco  farms. 

No  other  race  in  the  United  States  has  so  large  a  proportion  of  its  farmers 
devoted  to  a  single  stapleas  is  the  case  with  the  negroes  in  reference  to  cotton. 

In  the  North  Atlantic  States  negro  farmers  operated  in  1900  only  0.3  per 
cent  of  all  farms:  in  the  North  Central  States,  0.6  per  cent;  and  in  the  far 
Western,  only  0.2  per  cent. 

Of  the  farms  deriving  their  principal  income  from  cotton,  49.1  per  cent,  or 
very  nearly  one-half,  are  operated  by  negroes;  of  the  rice  farms,  37.3  per 
cent,  and  of  the  sugar  farms,  14.8  per  cent. 

If  now  we  consider  the  value*  of  the  products  of  the  ne>ro  farms  of  the 
United  States  (exclusive  of  the  products  fed  to  Uve  stock),  we  find  that  34.1 
per  cent  of  these  farms  realized  between  $  .'50  and  $  >U0  worth  of  such  products 
in  1899;  33.1  per  cent  realized  between  $100  and  $250;  12.8  per  cent  realized  be- 
tween $500  and  $1,000,  and  9.8  per  cent  realized  between  |50  and  $100.  These 
results  are  not  materially  different  from  the  results  on  white  farms.  The 
percentages  of  the  whites  show  somewhat  higher,  but  not  much  higher' 
values  attained  in  that  year. 

As  to  the  character  of  tenure,  it  is  found  that  of  the  negro  farmers  of  the 
United  States  in  1900  38  per  cent  were  share  tenants,  36.6  per  cent  cash  ten- 
ants, 21  per  cent  owners,  and  4  per  cent  part  owners.  In  this  respect  the 
figures  as  to  the  white  farms  are  materially  different.  Of  the  white  farmers 
about  60  per  cent  are  ownei*s.  The  showing  of  the  negroes  as  to  ownership 
and  cash  tenancy  is,  however,  quite  creditable. 

As  to  the  acreage,  the  negro  farms  of  between  20  and  50  acres  constitute 
45.9  per  cent  of  the  total  negro  farms;  between  50  and  100  acres,  18  per  c^nt; 
between  10  and  20  acres,  16  per  cent,  and  between  100  and  175  acres,  8.9  per 
cent.  This  is  not  materially  different  from  the  acreage  percentage  of  the 
white  farms— a  little  smaller,  but  not  much.  Especially  in  the  Southern 
States  the  difference  in  favor  of  the  whites  in  respect  to  acreage  is  very 
small. 

The  greater  percentage  of  tenancy  among  the  negroes  and  of  ownership 
among  the  whites  is  a  perfectly  natural  condition  of  affairs.  In  view  of  the 
short  time  that  has  elapsed  since  emancipation,  nothing  else  could  be  reason- 
ably expected.  As  the  census  says:  "  To  find  any  other  condition  would  prove 
the  negro  race  industrially  superior  to  the  white  race,"  especially  as  "the 
negro  started  with  nothing  forty  years  ago."  The  following  paragraphs 
from  the  census  are  also  in  point: 

"  In  1860  in  the  South  Atlantic  States  there  were  301,940  farms,  practically  all 
operated  by  white  farm  owners  or  managers.  In  1900  there  were  673,354  farms 
operated  by  white  farmers,  of  which  4.)0,541  were  conducted  either  by  farm 
ers  who  owned  the  whole  or  a  jiart  of  their  land  or  by  hired  white  managers, 
and  222,813  by  cash  or  share  tenants.  In  forty  years  the  number  of  farms 
operated  by  white  farmers  increased  371,414,  and  of  that  number  148,601,  or 
40  per  cent,  were  those  of  owners  or  managers,  and  222,813,  or  60  per  cent, 
those  of  tenants.  In  the  period  which  witnessed  this  addition  of  white  farm 
ers  in  the  South  Atlantic  States  287,933  negroes  had  acquired  control  of  farm 
land  in  those  States,  of  whom  202,.578,  or  70.4  per  cent,  were  tenants,  and  85,355, 
or  29.6  per  cent,  were  owners  or  managers. 

"  In  considering  these  comparative  figures,  account  should  be  taken  of  the 
following  facts:  The  negroes  at  the  close  of  the  civil  war  were  just  starting 
out  upon  their  career  as  wage-earners.  They  had  no  land  and  no  experience 
as  farm  owners  or  tenants,  and  none  of  them  became  farm  owners  by  inher- 
itance nor  inherited  money  with  which  to  buy  land.  Of  the  371,414  white 
farmers  added  since  1860,  vei-y  many  were  the  children  of  landowners  and 
came  into  the  possession  of  farm  land,  or  the  wherewithal  to  purchase  the 
5998 


27 


same,  by  inheritance.  When  this  difference  in  the  industrial  condition  of  the 
two  races  in  1860  is  taken  into  account,  the  fact  that  the  relative  number  of 
owners  among  the  negro  farmers  in  the  South  Atlantic  States  in  1900  was 
practically  three-fourths  as  great  as  the  relative  number  of  owners  among 
the  white  farmers  of  those  States  added  in  the  same  period  marks  a  most 
noteworthy  achievement." 

The  statistics  for  the  South  Central  States  show  about  the  same  proportion  *, 
As  already  stated,  the  total  number  of  farms  in  the  United  States  operated 
by  negroes  in  1900  was  746,717.  The  value  of  these  farms,  including  buildings, 
tools,  machinery,  and  live  stock,  was  $499,948,734.  The  value  of  the  products 
of  these  farms,  inclusive  of  products  fed  to  live  stock  on  the  premises,  was 
$255,751,145,  and  exclusive  of  products  fed  to  live  stock,  $229,907,702.  The  value 
of  the  negro  farms  was  about  2i  per  cent  of  the  total  valuation  of  the  farm 
property  of  the  United  States,  while  the  value  of  the  products  of  the  negro 
farms  was  about  6  per  cent  of  the  total  value  of  the  farm  products  of  the 
United  States. 

Turning  to  the  Southern  States  again,  we  find  that  the  corresponding  pro- 
portions are  greatly  increased.  In  round  numbers  the  values  of  aU  the  farm 
property  in  those  States,  and  of  the  negro  farm  property,  were  in  1900  as 
foUows: 


State. 

Total  farm 
values. 

Xegro  farm 
values. 

Virginia 

§323,000.000 

2:54,aX),(X)0 
153.  ax),  000 
22ii.(m.n;0 

179.000,000 

204, 000.  aw 

198. 000,  UX) 
962.(KK),f)C'0 
181.  OX),  000 

$25,000,000 

North  Carolina  ... 

28,00(),()(XI 

South  Carolina 

44.000,000 

Georgia 

49,a«,noo 

Florida .           ....     

6,(100,0«X) 

Alabama 

47.0(XI.1XX) 

Mississippi.     .        

86. 000,  om 

Louisiana 

38, 00(1.  ao 

Texas -          ._  

56,(KK).000 

Arkansas 

34,000,000 

Total 

2,716,000,000 

413,000,000 

In  other  words,  the  value  of  the  negro  farm  property  in  these  ten  States  is 
about  15  per  cent  of  the  total  farm  property  in  those  States,  and  if  Texas  be 
eliminated,  a  State  which  is  in  much  of  its  area  not  closely  affiliated  with  the 
South,  and  in  which  the  negroes  have  comparatively  small  interests,  the  pro- 
portion would  be  over  20  per  cent. 

The  figures  in  regard  to  the  relative  values  of  farm  products  at  the  South 
are  still  more  striking: 


State. 


Total  farm 
products. 


Negro  farm 
products. 


Virginia 

North  Carolina 
South  Carolina. 

Georgia 

Florida 

Alabama 

MissLssippi 

Louisiana 

Texas  

Arkansas 

Total 


$73,  (XX),  000 
79,0<Xl.(Xi0 
62,U(X),l«iO 
92,0(X).(K)0 

]6,(I(KI.(K)() 

81,0(M).IXK) 
91,0(K),(I00 
(k),OtX),()00 
201),  000, 000 
66.  (XX),  000 


13, 


000,000 
(KK),000 
(KKI,I100 

000.  (XX) 

(HHI.OOO 
00il.(X)0 

(xxi.ooo 

OOO.OOO 
000,  (KK) 
000,000 


835,000,000 


206,000,000 


Here  the  proportion  of  the  products  of  negro  farms,  as  compared  w  th  the 
total  farm  products  of  tlie  ten  States,  is  seen  to  be  nearly  25  per  cent,  or,  tak- 
ing out  Texas,  nearly  80  per  cent. 
6098 


28 

In  all  parts  of  the  country  except  the  far  West  the  per  cent  of  improved 
land  on  farms  operated  by  negroes  is  greater  than  on  those  of  white  farmers. 
The  greatest  difference  of  this  kind  in  190()  was  in  the  South  Central  States, 
where  the  farms  of  negroes  had  63.8  per  cent  of  improved  land,  while  those 
of  the  whites  had  but  about  28  per  cent. 

The  total  acrea:i:e  of  the  negro  farms  in  the  whole  country  is  about  40,000,000 
acres;  acreage  of  all  farms  about  840,000,000  acres.    These  figures  are  for  1900. 

[North  American  Review,  No.  CCLXVin,  March,  1879.] 

I.  OUGHT  THE  NEGKO   TO   BE   DISFRANCHISED?— OUGHT  HE  TO   HAVE   BEEN 
ENFRANCHISED? 

[James  G.  Blaine,  L.  Q.  C  Lamar,  Wade  Hampton,  James  A.  Garfield,  Alex- 
ander H.  Stephens,  Wendell  Phillips,  Montgomery  Blair,  Thomas  A.  Hen- 
dricks, conclusion— James  G.  Blaine.] 

Mr.  Blaine:  These  questions  have  lately  been  asked  by  many  who  have 
been  distinguished  as  the  special  champions  of  the  negro's  rights:  by  many 
who  have  devoted  their  lives  to  redressing  the  negro's  wrongs.  The  ques- 
tions owe  their  origin  not  to  any  cooling  of  philanthropic  interest,  not  to  any 
novel  or  radical  views  about  universal  suffrage,  but  to  the  fact  that,  in  the 
judgment  of  many  of  those  hitherto  accounted  wisest,  negro  suffrage  has 
failed  to  attain  the  ends  hoped  for  when  the  franchise  was  conferred;  failed 
as  a  means  of  more  completely  securing  the  negro's  civil  rights;  failed  to 
bring  him  the  consideration  which  generally  attaches  to  power;  failed,  in- 
deed, to  achieve  anything  except  to  increase  the  political  weight  and  influ- 
ence of  those  against  whom,  and  in  spite  of  whom,  his  enfranchisement  was 
secured. 

Those  who  have  reached  this  conclusion,  and  those  who  are  tending 
toward  it,  argue  that  the  important  franchise  was  prematurely  bestowed  on 
the  negro;  that  its  possession  necessarily  places  him  in  inharmonious  rela- 
tions with  the  white  race;  that  the  excitement  incident  to  its  free  enjoyment 
hinders  him  fi-om  progress  in  the  riidimentary  and  essential  branches  of  ed- 
ucation; that  his  advance  in  material  wealth  is  thus  delayed  and  obstructed; 
and  that  obstacles,  which  would  not  otherwise  exist,  are  continually  accii- 
mulating  in  his  path,  rendering  his  progress  impossible  and  his  oppression 
inevitable.  In  other  words,  that  suffrage  in  the  hands  of  the  negro  is  a  chal- 
lenge to  the  white  race  for  a  contest  in  which  he  is  sure  to  be  overmatched, 
and  that  the  withdrawal  of  the  franchise  would  remove  all  conflict,  restoi-e 
kindly  relations  between  the  races,  place  the  whites  on  their  proper  and  hon- 
orable responsibility,  and  assure  to  each  race  the  largest  prosperity  attain- 
able under  a  government  where  both  are  compelled  to  live. 

The  class  of  men  whose  views  are  thus  hastily  summarized  do  not  contem- 
plate the  withdrawal  of  the  suffrage  from  the  negro  without  a  corresponding 
reduction  in  the  representation  in  Congress  of  the  States  where  the  negro  is 
a  large  factor  in  the  apportionment.  And  yet  it  is  quite  probable  that  they 
have  not  given  thought  to  the  difficulty,  or  rather  the  impossibility,  of  com- 
passing that  end.  Under  the  Con.stitution,  as  it  is  now  construed,  the  dimi- 
nution of  representative  strength  could  only  result  from  the  States  passing 
such  laws  as  would  disfranchise  the  negro  by  some  educational  or  property 
test,  as  it  is  forbidden  by  the  fifteenth  amendment  to  disfranchise  him  on  ac- 
count of  his  race.  But  no  Southern  State  will  do  this,  and  for  two  reasons: 
First,  they  will  in  no  event  consent  to  a  reduction  of  representative  strength; 
and,  second,  they  could  not  make  any  disfranchisement  of  the  negro  that 
would  not  at  the  same  time  disfranchise  an  immense  number  of  whites. 

Quite  another  class— mostly  resident  in  the  South,  but  with  numerous 
sympathizers  in  the  North— would  be  glad  to  have  the  negro  disfranchised 
on  totally  different  grounds.  Born  and  reared  with  the  belief  that  the  negro 
is  inferior  to  the  white  man  in  everything,  it  is  hard  for  the  class  who  were 


20 

masters  at  the  South  to  endure  any  phase  or  form  of  equality  on  the  part  of 
the  negri'o.  Instinct  governs  reason,  and  with  the  mass  of  Southern  people 
tl»e  aversion  to  equality  is  instinctive  and  ineradicable.  The  general  conclu- 
sion with  this  class  would  be  to  deprive  the  negrro  of  voting  if  it  could  be 
done  without  impaii-ing  the  representation  of  their  States,  but  not  to  make 
any  move  in  that  direction  so  long  ns  diminished  power  in  Congress  is  the 
constitutional  and  logical  result  of  a  denial  or  abridgment  of  suffrage.  In 
the  meanwhile,  seeing  no  mode  of  legally  or  equitably  depriving  the  negro 
of  his  suffrage  except  with  unwelcome  penalty  to  themselves,  the  Southern 
States  as  a  whole— differing  in  degree  but  the  same  in  effect— have  striven  to 
achieve  by  indirect  and  unlawful  means  what  they  can  not  achieve  directly 
and  lawfully.  They  have  so  far  as  possible  made  negro  suffrage  of  none  ef- 
fect.   They  have  done  this  against  law  and  against  justice. 

Having  stated  the  position  of  both  classes  on  thi.s  question,  I  venture  now 
to  give  my  own  views  in  a  series  of  statements  in  which  I  shall  endeavor  to 
embody  both  argunaent  and  conclusion: 

First.  The  two  classes  I  have  named,  contemplating  the  possible  or  desir- 
able disfranchisement  of  the  negro  from  entirely  different  standpoints,  and 
with  entirely  different  aims,  are  both  and  equally  in  the  wrong.  The  first  is 
radically  in  error  in  supposing  that  a  disfranchisement  of  the  negro  would 
put  him  in  the  way  of  any  development  or  progress  that  would  in  time  fit 
him  for  the  suffrage.  He  would  instead  grow  more  and  raore  unfit  for  it 
every  day  from  the  time  the  first  backward  step  should  bo  taken,  and  he 
would  relapse,  if  not  into  actual  chattel  slavery,  yet  into  such  a  dependent 
and  defenseless  condition  as  would  result  in  only  another  form  of  servitude. 
For  the  ballot  to-day,  imperfectly  enjoyed  as  it  is  by  the  negro,  its  freedom 
unjustly  and  illegally  curtailed,  its  independence  ruthlessly  marred,  its 
purity  defiled,  is  withal  and  after  all  the  strong  shield  the  race  has  against  a 
form  of  servitude  which  would  have  all  the  cruelty  and  none  of  the  allevia- 
tions of  the  old  slave  system,  whose  destruction  carriedwith  it  the  shedding 
of  so  much  innocent  blood. 

The  second  class  is  wrong  in  anticipating  even  the  remote  possibility  of  se- 
curing the  legal  disfranchisement  of  the  negro  without  a  reduction  of  repre- 
sentation. Both  sides  have  fenced  for  position  on  this  question.  But  for  the 
clause  regulating  representation  in  the  fourteenth  amendment  to  the  Con- 
stitution we  should  to-day  have  the  South  wholly  under  the  control,  and  le- 
gally under  the  control,  of  those  who  rebelled  against  the  Union  and  sought 
to  erect  the  Confederate  government— enjoying  full  representation  by  rea- 
son of  the  negroes  being  counted  in  the  apportionment  without  a  pretense 
of  suffrage  being  conceded  to  the  race.  The  fourteenth  amendment  was 
designed  to  prevent  this,  and  if  it  does  not  succeed  in  preventing  it  it  is  be- 
cauho  of  evasion  and  violation  of  its  express  provisions  and  of  its  clear  intent. 
Those  who  erected  the  Confederate  government  may  be  in  exclusive  posses- 
sion of  power  throughout  the  South,  but  they  are  not  so  fairly  and  legally, 
and  they  will  not  be  permitted  to  continue  in  the  enjoyment  of  political 
power  unjustly  seized^and  seized  in  derogation  and  in  defiance  of  the  rights 
not  merely  of  the  negro,  but  of  the  whites  in  all  other  sections  of  the  country. 
Injustice  can  not  stand  before  exposure  and  argument  and  the  force  of  pub- 
lic ojnnion,  and  no  more  severe  weapons  of  defense  will  be  required  against 
the  wrong  which  now  afflicts  the  South  and  is  a  scandal  to  the  whole  country. 
Second.  But,  while  discussing  the  question  of  the  disfranchisement  of  the 
negro,  and  settling  its  justice  or  expediency  according  to  our  discretion,  it 
may  be  worth  while  to  look  at  its  impracticability  or,  to  state  it  still  more 
Strongly,  its  impossibility.  Logicians  attach  weight  to  arguments  drawn  ab 
inconvenienti.  Arguments  mtist  be  still  more  cogent  and  conclusions  still 
more  decisive  when  drawn  ab  impo.ssibili.  The  negro  is  secure  against  dis- 
franchisenient  by  two  constitutional  amendments,  and  he  caH  not  be  re- 

6y:8 


30 

manded  to  the  nonvoting  class  until  both  these  amendments  aije  annulled. 
And  these  amendments  can  not  be  annulled  until  two-thirds  of  the  Senate 
and  two-thirds  of  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United  States  shall 
propose,  and  a  majority  in  the  legislatures  or  conventions  of  twenty-nine 
States  shall  by  aflarmative  vote  approve,  theannulment.  In  other  words,  the 
negro  can  not  be  disfranchised  so  long  as  one  vote  more  than  one-third  in 
the  United  States  Senate  or  one  vote  more  than  one-third  in  the  House  of 
Representatives  shall  be  recorded  against  it,  and  if  these  securities  and  safe- 
guards should  give  way,  then  the  disfranchisement  could  not  be  effected  so 
long  as  a  majority  in  one  branch  in  the  legislatures  of  only  ten  States  should 
refuse  to  assent  to  it  and  refuse  to  assent  to  a  convention  to  which  it  might 
be  referred.  No  human  right  on  this  continent  is  more  completely  guaran- 
teed than  the  right  against  disfranchisement  on  account  of  race,  color,  or 
previous  condition  of  servitude,  as  embodied  in  the  fifteenth  amendment  to 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

Third.  In  enforcement  and  elucidation  of  my  second  point  it  is  of  interest 
to  observe  the  rapid  advance  and  development  of  popular  sentiment  in  re- 
gard to  the  rights  of  the  negro  as  eKpressed  in  the  last  three  amendments  to 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  In  1863  Congress  submitted  the  thir- 
teenth amendment,  which  merely  gave  the  negro  freedom,  withftut  suffrage, 
civil  rights,  or  citizenship.  In  1866  the  fourteenth  amendment  was  sub- 
mitted, declaring  the  negro  to  be  a  citizen,  but  not  forbidding  the  States  to 
withhold  suffrage  from  him — yet  inducing  them  to  grant  it  by  the  provision 
that  representation  in  Congress  should  be  reduced  in  proportion  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  male  citizens  21  years  of  aje  from  the  right  to  vote,  except  for  re- 
bellion or  other  crime. 

In  18  59  the  decisive  step  was  taken  of  declaring  that  "  the  right  of  citizens 
of  the  United  States  to  vote  shall  not  be  abridged  by  the  United  States  or 
by  any  State  on  account  of  race,  color,  or  previous  condition  of  servitude." 
A  most  important  provision  in  this  amendment  is  the  inhibition  upon  the 
"United  States"  as  well  as  upon  "any  State;"  for  it  would  not  be  among  the 
impossible  results  of  a  great  political  revolution,  resting  on  prejudice  and 
gi*asping  for  power,  that,  in  the  absence  of  this  express  negation,  the  United 
States  might  assume  or  usurp  the  right  to  deprive  the  negro  of  suffrage,  and 
then  the  States  would  not  be  subjected  to  the  forfeiture  of  representation  pro- 
vided in  the  fourteenth  amendment  as  the  result  of  the  denial  or  abridgment 
of  suffrage  by  State  authority.  In  this  stately  progression  of  organic  enact- 
ments the  will  of  a  great  people  is  embodied,  and  its  reversal  would  be  one 
of  those  revolutions  which  would  convulse  social  order  and  endanger  the  au» 
thority  of  law.  There  will  be  no  step  backward,  but  under  the  provision 
which  specifically  confers  on  Congress  the  power  to  enforce  each  amend- 
ment by  "appropriate  legislation"  there  will  be  applied,  from  time  to  time 
fitfully,  perhaps,  and  yet  certainly,  the  restraining  and  correcting  edicts  of 
national  authority. 

Fourth.  As  I  have  already  hinted,  there  will  be  no  attempt  made  in  the 
Southern  States  to  disfranchise  the  negro  by  any  of  those  methods  which 
would  stiil  be  within  the  power  of  the  State.  There  is  no  Southern  State 
that  would  dare  venture  on  an  educational  qualification,  because  by  the  last 
census  there  were  more  than  1,000,000  white  persons  over  15  years  of  age.  in 
the  States  lately  slaveholding,  who  could  not  read  a  word,  and  a  still  larger 
number  who  could  not  write  their  names.  There  was,  of  coui"se.  a  still 
greater  number  of  negroes  of  the  same  ages  who  could  not  read  or  write;  but 
in  the  nine  yeai-s  that  have  intervened  since  the  census  was  taken  there  has 
been  a  much  greater  advance  in  the  education  of  the  negroes  than  in  the  edu- 
cation of  the  poor  whites  of  tne  South;  and  to-day  on  an  educational  qualifi- 
cation it  is  quite  probable  that,  while  the  proportion  would  be  in  favor  of 
the  whites,  the  absolute  exclusion  of  the  whites  in  some  of  the  States  would 


31 

be  nearly  as  great  as  that  of  the  negroes.  Nor  would  a  property  test  operate 
with  any  greater  advantage  to  the  whites.  The  slave  States  always  had  a 
large  class  of  very  poor  and  entirely  uneducated  whites,  and  any  qualifica- 
tion of  property  that  would  seriously  diminish  the  negro  vote  would  also  cut 
off  a  very  large  number  of  whites  from  the  suffrage. 

Thus  far  I  have  directed  my  argument  to  the  first  question  propounded, 
"Oughtthe  negro  to  be  disfranchised?"  The  second  interrogatory,  "Ought 
he  to  have  been  enfranchised? "  is  not  practical,  but  speculative;  and  yet, 
unless  it  can  be  answered  with  confidence  in  the  affirmative,  the  moral  tenure 
of  his  suffrage  is  weakened,  and,  as  a  consequence,  his  legal  right  to  enjoy  it 
is  impaired.  For  myself  I  answer  the  second  question  in  the  affirmative, 
with  as  little  hesitation  as  I  answered  the  first  in  the  negative.  And,  if  the 
question  were  again  submitted  to  the  judgment  of  Congress,  I  would  vote 
for  suffrage  in  the  Ught  of  experience  with  more  confidence  than  I  voted  for 
it  in  the  light  of  an  experiment.  Had  the  franchise  not  been  bestowed  upon 
the  negro  as  his  shield  and  weapon  of  defense,  the  demand  upon  the  General 
Government  to  interfere  for  his  protection  would  have  been  constant  and 
irritating  and  embarrassing.  Great  complaint  has  been  made  for  years  past 
of  the  Government's  interference,  simply  to  secure  to  the  colored  citizen  his 
plainest  constitutional  right.  But  this  intervention  has  been  trifling  com- 
pared to  that  which  would  have  been  required  it  we  had  not  given  suffrage 
to  the  negro.  In  the  reconstruction  experiments  under  President  Johnson's 
plan,  before  the  negro  was  enfranchised,  it  was  clearly  foreshadowed  that  he 
was  to  be  dealt  with  as  one  having  no  rights  except  such  as  the  whites  should 
choose  to  grant.  The  negro  was  to  work  according  to  labor  laws;  freedom 
of  movement  and  transit  was  to  be  denied  him  by  the  operation  of  vagrant 
laws;  liberty  to  sell  his  time  and  his  skiU  at  their  market  value  was  to  be  re- 
strained by  apprentice  laws;  and  the  slavery  that  was  abolished  by  the  Con- 
stitution of  a  nation  was  to  be  revived  by  the  enactment  of  a  State.  To  coun- 
teract these  and  all  like  efforts  at  reenslavement,  the  national  authority 
would  have  been  constantly  invoked;  interference  in  the  most  positive  and 
peremptory  manner  would  have  been  demanded,  and  angry  conflict  and  pos- 
sibly resistance  to  law  would  have  resulted.  The  one  sure  mode  to  remand 
the  States  that  rebelled  against  the  Union  to  their  autonomy  was  to  give  suf- 
frage to  the  negro;  and  that  autonomy  will  be  complete,  absolute,  and  un- 
questioned whenever  the  rights  that  are  guaranteed  by  the  Constitution  of 
the  Republic  shall  be  enjoyed  in  every  State — as  the  administration  of  jus- 
tice was  assured  in  Magna  Charta— "promptly  and  without  delay;  freely 
and  without  sale;  completely  and  without  denial." 

James  G.  Blaine. 

Mr.  Lamar:  The  precision  with  which  Mr.  Blaine  states  his  premises  and 
the  unimpassioned  spirit  in  which  he  draws  his  conclusions  render  the  discus- 
sion which  he  proposes  both  possible  and  profitable.  His  statement  it.self  de- 
prives the  issue  of  nearly  all  its  difficulty  and  danger.  He  lays  down  with 
force  and  clearness  his  propositions: 

1.  That  the  disfranchisement  of  the  negro  is  a  political  impossibility  under 
any  circumstances  short  of  revolution. 

2.  That  the  ballot  in  the  hands  of  the  negro,  however  its  exercise  may  have 
been  embarrassed  and  diminished  by  what  he  considers,  erroneously,  a  gen- 
ei-al  southern  policy,  has  been  to  that  race  a  means  of  defense  and  an  element 
of  progress. 

I  agree  to  both  propositions.  In  all  my  experience  of  southern  opinion  I 
know  no  southern  man  of  infiuence  or  consideration  who  believes  that  the 
diifranchisement  of  the  negro  on  account  of  race,  color,  or  former  condition 
of  servitude  is  a  political  possibility.  I  am  not  now  discussing  the  pro- 
priety or  wisdom  of  universal  suffrage,  or  whether,  in  the  interests  of  wise, 
safe,  and  orderly  government,  all  suffrage  ought  not  to  be  qualified.    What 


32 

I  mean  to  say  is  that  universal  suffrage  being  given  as  the  condition  of  our 
political  life,  the  negro  once  made  a  citizen  can  not  be  placed  under  any  other 
condition.  And  in  this  connection  it  may  surprise  some  of  the  readers  of  this 
discussion  to  learn  that  in  1869  the  white  people  of  Mississippi  unanimously 
voted  at  the  poUs  in  favor  of  ratifying  the  enfranchising  amendment  for  which 
Mr.  Blaine  voted  in  Congress,  beUeving  as  they  did  that  when  once  the  negro 
was  made  a  free  man,  a  property  holder,  and  a  taxpayer  he  could  not  be 
excluded  from  the  remaining  privilege  and  duty  of  a  citizen,  the  right  and 
obUgation  to  vote.  And  I  think  I  can  safely  say  for  that  people  what  Mr. 
Blaine  says  for  himself,  that,  if  the  question  were  again  submitted  to  their 
judgment,  they  "would  vote  for  negro  suffrage  in  the  light  of  experience 
with  more  confidence  than  they  voted  for  it  in  the  light  of  an  experiment." 

I  concur  also  in  the  second  proposition,  that  the  ballot  has  been  in  the 
hands  of  the  negro  both  a  defense  and  an  education;  and  I  am  glad  to  find 
this  impoi-tant  truth  recognized  so  fully  by  Mr.  Blaine.  We  might  possibly 
differ  as  to  the  extent  to  which  the  defense  was  needed  or  as  to  the  progress 
which  has  been  made  in  the  education.  But  enough  would  remain  for  sub- 
stantial agreement.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  the  unaccustomed  rela- 
tion into  which  the  white  and  colored  people  of  the  South  were  suddenly 
forced  there  would  have  been  a  natural  tendency  on  the  part  of  the  former 
masters,  still  in  possession  of  the  land  and  of  the  intelligence  of  the  country 
and  of  its  legislative  power,  to  use  an  almost  absolute  authority  and  to  de- 
velop the  new  f  reedman  according  to  their  own  idea  of  what  was  good  for  him. 
This  would  have  resulted  in  a  race  distinction,  with  such  inr-idents  of  the  old 
system  as  would  have  discontented  the  negro  and  dissatisfied  the  general 
opinion  and  sentiment  of  the  counti"y.  If  slavery  was  to  be  abolished,  it 
must,  I  think,  be  admitted  that  there  could  be  nothing  short  of  complete 
abolition,  free  from  any  of  the  affinities  of  slavery;  and  this  would  not  have 
been  effected  so  long  as  there  existed  any  inequality  before  the  law.  The 
ballot  was,  therefore,  a  protection  of  the  negro  against  any  such  condition 
and  enabled  him  to  force  his  interests  upon  the  legislative  consideration  of 
the  South. 

What  I  do  not  think  Mr.  Blaine  fully  realizes  or  makes  due  allowance  for 
Is  that  this  sudden  transformation,  social  and  political,  would  necessarily  pro- 
duce some  jar  in  its  practical  operation,  and  that  Its  successful  working  could 
be  effected  only  by  experienced  and  conscientious  men  acting  on  both  sides 
with  good  sense  and  good  temper.  Conquest  on  either  side  only  complicated 
the  problem.  Its  only  solution  was  a  sagacious  and  kindly  cooperation  of  all 
the  social  forces.  The  vote  in  the  hands  of  the  negro  should  have  been  genu 
inely  "a  defense,"  not  a  weapon  of  attack. 

The  proper  use  of  this  defensive  power  and  Its  growth  into  a  means  of 
wholesome  and  positive  influence  upon  the  character  and  interests  of  the 
country  could  only  be  attained  by  the  education  of  the  negi'o.  And  I  agree 
fuUy  with  Mr.  Blaine  that  his  practical  use  of  the  ballot  was  an  important 
part  of  that  education.  I  am  willing  to  accept  the  present  condition  of  the 
South  as  the  result  of  that  practical  education.  Will  he?  I  say  that  the  negro 
has  been  using  this  defense  for  ten  years,  that  in  this  time  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  negroes,  born  free,  have  gi-own  to  manhood  under  the  experience  of 
a  political  life  as  open  to  them  as  to  the  old,  white,  governing  race;  and  Mr. 
Blaine  himself  asserts  that  education  has  been  more  generally  diffused  among 
the  youth  of  the  colored  race  than  among  the  poorer  classes  of  the  whites— 
whether  truly  or  erroneously  we  will  not  here  discuss— and  the  result  Is  that 
throughout  the  South  the  races  vote  together,  that  they  have  learned  where 
their  mutual  interest  lies,  and  that  whom  God  has  joined  all  the  politicians 
have  failed  to  keep  asunder. 

I  have  his  essay  before  me.  He  denies  that  this  is  a  legitimate  result.  He 
insists  that  the  facts  pr<:i.ve  that  the  negro  vote  has  been  cheated  by  fraud  or 


33 

defeated  by  force  aud  that  the  present  condition  of  southern  politics  is  an 
unnatural  result.  I  am  willing  to  meet  this  issue  on  his  own  principles.  I 
will  indulge  in  neither  invective  nor  denunciation.  I  will  simply  take  the 
late  government  of  South  Carolina  or  of  Louisiana,  or  of  other  States  under 
similar  rule,  and  describe  it  in  language  that  Mr.  Blaine  may  himself  select. 
When  he  has  told  its  history  I  will  ask  him  whether  he  would  willingly,  as  a 
patriotic  American,  desire  to  see  his  own  State,  or  any  other  of  the  free 
States,  reduced  to  such  a  level?  I  am  not  afraid  of  his  answer  or  that  of  any 
man  who  has  been  bred  under  the  traditions  of  a  virtuous  civilization. 

Then  I  will  say  to  him:  This,  it  is  true,  is  a  painful  result;  but  when  you  put 
the  ballot  in  the  hands  of  an  ignorant  negro  majority  a?  a  means  of  education 
and  progress  you  must  be  patient  while  they  learn  their  lesson.  We  of  the 
South  have  borne  all  this  because  we  knew  that  the  reaction  must  come.  It 
has  come.  The  results  which  you  see  to  be  so  bad  the  negro  has  seen  also. 
He  has  come  back  to  us  with  the  same  blind  impulse  with  which  a  few  years 
ago  he  fled  from  us.  He  may  be  as  ignorant  a  Democrat  as  he  was  an  igno- 
rant Ee:'ublican,  but  years  must  yetpass  before  the  ballot  will  have  educated 
him  fully  into  self-reliant,  temperate  citizenship;  and  what  we  of  the  South 
have  borne  our  friends  of  the  North  must  bear  with  us,  until  the  negro  ha3 
become  what  we  both  want  to  make  him.  This  is  part  of  his  education.  By 
a  system  not  one  whit  less  a  system  of  force  or  of  f ravid  than  that  alleged  to 
exist  now  he  was  taken  away  from  his  natural  leaders  at  the  South  and  held 
to  a  compact  Republican  vote.  Crranting— which  I  do  not  grant— that  the 
present  methods  are  as  bad  as  those  then  applied,  the  fault  lies  in  the  char- 
acter of  the  vote.  It  is  not  educated  to  free  action,  and  we  must  educate  it 
to  what  it  ought  to  be.  Take  the  history  of  the  race,  as  stated  by  Mr.  Blaine 
himself,  and  is  there  not  progress,  astonishing  progress,  when  the  material 
with  which  we  are  dealing  is  considered?  Force  and  fraud  have  been  freely 
charged.  Suppose  it  granted.  Coiild  anyone  expect,  did  anyone  expect, 
that  such  a  tremendous  political  and  social  change —the  sudden  clothing  of 
4,000,000  slaves  with  suffrage  and  with  overruling  political  power— could  be 
made  without  violent  disturbance  and  disorder?  Had  any  such  change  ever 
been  made  in  any  free  State  without  convulsion?  Was  it  to  be  expected  that, 
when  the  capital  and  character  of  a  State  were  placed  at  the  mercy  of  a  nu- 
merical majority  of  ignorant  and  poverty-stricken  voters,  it  would  present  a 
model  of  peace  and  order? 

But  all  this  while  the  ballot  has  been  educating  the  negro.  He  has  learned 
that  he  was  a  power  between  Republican  and  Democrat.  He  is  now  learning 
rapidly  that  at  the  South  he  is  a  power  between  Democrat  and  Democrat, 
and  in  the  late  election  he  made  that  power  felt  in  the  result.  I  would  have 
preferred  a  much  less  costly  tuition;  but,  such  as  it  is,  it  has  been  paid  for, 
and  if  Mr.  Blaine  will  patiently  trust  his  own  theory  he  will  find  the  ballot 
in  the  hands  of  the  negro  the  best  defense  and  the  best  educator.  But,  as  the 
South  has  been  patient,  so  must  he  be  patient.  As  the  South  has  chafed  in- 
effectually when  that  vote  was  all  against  her  white  people,  so  will  he  chafe 
ineffectually  when  it  is  now  lai-gely  for  them. 

In  his  perplexity  over  the  sudden  change  in  the  vote  of  the  negro  Mr.  Blaine 
has  forgotten  that,  at  this  stage  of  its  progress,  the  negro  vote  can  not  in- 
telligently direct  itself.  It  must  and  will  follow  some  leader.  Now,  up  to 
1876  the  Republican  party,  armed  with  all  the  authority  of  the  Federal  Gov 
ernment,  supplied  those  leaders.  They  were  strangers  in  the  States  they 
governed.  The  moment  that  the  compact  vote  upon  which  their  power 
rested  was  divided  they  abandoned  their  places,  and  in  almost  every  case 
left  the  State  in  which  they  had  ruled.  The  great  ma-ss  of  colored  voters 
was  left  without  guides.  In  many  of  the  largest  counties,  where  their  ma- 
jority was  absolute,  they  were  not  only  not  organized,  but  there  was  not 
interest  enough  to  print  a  Republican  ticket.  The  weapon  of  defense  which 
5998 3' 


34 

had  been  given  to  the  negro  was  thrown  away  by  his  leaders  in  their  flight, 
and  Mr.  Blaine  can  scarcely  compliin  if  it  was  picked  up  by  the  Demo- 
crats. In  saying  this  I  do  not  wish  to  provoke  or  renew  useless  and  irri- 
tating controversies;  but  Mr.  Blaine's  position  is  that  not  only  the  negro 
ought  not  to  be  disfranchised,  but  that  such  a  question  could  never  have  sug- 
gested itself  but  for  an  illegal  control  of  the  negro  vote  by  southern  Demo- 
crats. My  view  is  that  while  the  enfranchisement  of  the  negro  was  a  politi- 
cal necessity,  it  could  not  be  effected  without  subjecting  the  country  to  such 
dangerous  political  aberrations  as  we  have  experienced:  that  a  wise  man 
would  have  foreseen  them;  and  that,  in  fact,  they  have  been  less  than  could 
reasonably  have  been  anticipated:  that  the  Lallot  in  the  hands  of  the  negro 
has  been  a  protection  and  an  educator:  that  with  it  he  has  been  stronger  and 
safer  in  all  his  rights  than  the  Chinese  have  been  in  California  without  it, 
and  that  the  problems  it  raised  are  steadily  and  without  danger  solving 
themselves  through  the  process  of  local  self-government. 

When  Mr.  Blaine  admits  that  disfranchisement  is  impossible  and  that  the 
ballot  has  been,  in  spite  of  all  drawbacks,  a  benefit  to  the  negi-o,  he  really 
proves  that  there  is  no  organic  question  affecting  great  national  inter  sts 
but  simply  the  subordinate  question.  How  i  apidly  is  the  ballot  fitting  the 
negi'o  for  the  full  enjoyment  of  his  citizenship,  and  what  influence  does  his 
vote  exercise  upon  the  supremacy  of  one  party  or  the  other  in  national  poli- 
tics? This  latter  may  be  an  interesting  question,  but  not  one  which  should 
disturb  either  a  sound  national  sentiment  or  great  national  interests.  I  do 
not  propose  to  discuss  it.  I  am  of  opinion  that  to  make  the  negro  a  free  citi- 
zen it  was  necessary  first  to  take  him  from  his  master.  Then  it  became  nec- 
essary to  take  him  from  the  party  -nhich  claimed  his  vote  as  absolutely  as 
his  master  had  claimed  his  labor.  The  next  step  will  be  to  take  him  as  a  class 
from  either  party  and  allow  him  to  differ  and  divide  just  as  white  men  do. 
The  difliculty  so  far  has  been  that  the  Republican  party  desires  to  retain  the 
negro  not  as  a  voter,  but  as  a  Republican  voter.  Party  politics  have  been  di- 
rect ed  to  keep  him  at  the  South  in  antagonism  to  the  white  race,  with  whom 
all  his  material  interests  are  identified.  Whenever— and  the  time  is  not  dis- 
tant—whenever political  issues  arise  which  divide  the  white  men  of  the  South, 
the  negro  will  divide  too.  The  time  will  then  have  come  when  he  can  not  act 
against  the  white  race  as  a  body  or  with  the  white  race  as  a  body.  He  will 
have  to  choose  for  himself;  and  the  white  race,  divided  politically,  will  want 
him  to  divide.  The  use  of  his  vote  will  then  be  the  exercise  of  his  individual 
intelligence,  and  he  will  find  friends  on  all  sides  wilhng  and  anxious  to  en- 
lighten and  influence  him,  and  to  sustain  him  in  his  decisions. 

The  whole  country  has  passed  through  a  very  painful  experience  in  the 
solution  of  this  question,  and  no  one  can  adequately  describe  the  bitterness 
of  the  trial  of  the  South;  but  she  has  borne  it,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  a 
statesman  who  loves  this  great  country  of  which  we  are  all  citizens  should 
feel  that  the  time  has  come  when  a  kindly  judgment  of  each  other's  difficul- 
ties would  bring  us  nearer  to  that  unanimity  of  action  which  can  alone  aid 
the  s  jlution  of  a  grave  social  and  political  problem.  I  was  born  and  bred  a 
slaveholder,  born  and  bred  among  slaveholders;  I  have  known  slavery  in  its 
kindestand  most  beneficent  aspect.  My  associations  with  the  past  of  menand 
things  are  full  of  love  and  reverence.  In  all  history  never  has  a  heavy  duty 
been  discharged  more  faithfully,  more  conscientiously,  more  successfully, 
than  by  the  slaveholders  of  the  South.  But,  if  I  know  myself  and  those 
whom  I  represent,  we  have  accepted  the  change  in  the  same  spirit.  No  citi- 
zen of  this  Republic  more  than  the  southerner  can  or  does  desire  to  see  the 
negro  improved,  elevated,  civilized,  made  a  useful  and  worthy  element  in  our 
political  life.  None  more  than  they  deplore  and  condemn  all  violence  or  other 
means  tending  to  hinder  the  enjoyment  of  his  elective  franchise.  The  South 
took  him,  as  he  was  sent  to  her,  a  wild  and  godless  barbarian,  and  made  him 
5998 


35 

such  that  the  North  has  been  able  to  give  him  citizenship  mthout  the  destruc- 
tion of  our  institutions.  The  progress  which  he  made  -ss'ith  us  as  a  slave  will 
not  be  arrested  now  that  he  is  a  freeman— unless  partj  passion  and  personal 
ambition  insist  upon  using  him  as  an  instrument  for  selfish  ends.  And  I  have 
joined  in  this  discussion  because  I  regard  it  an  honest  effort  to  remove  this 
question  from  the  heated  atmosphere  of  political  debate,  and  to  ask  the  con- 
scientious attention  of  thinking  men  to  a  problem  the  wise  and  peaceful  solu- 
tion of  which  will  be  one  of  the  noblest  achievements  of  democratic  civili- 
zation. 

Mr.  Blaine  assumes  that  the  Southern  States  as  a  whole— differing  in  de- 
gree, but  the  same  in  effecl^-have  through  force  and  fraud  so  suppressed  the 
negro  vote  as  to  make  negro  suffrage  as  far  as  possible  of  none  effect.  The 
statistics  of  election  will  show  that  the  negro  vote  thi-oughout  the  South  has 
not  been  suppressed.  That  there  have  been  instances  of  fraud  and  force  I 
admit  and  deplore,  but  they  have  been  exceptional.  Take  them  all  in  the  re- 
cent election  and  average  them  among  a  population  of  12,000,000  people,  and 
to  what  do  they  amount?  The  President,  in  reviewing  the  whole  subject  after 
these  elections,  did  allege,  and  could  only  allege,  that  in  all  these  States  but 
seven  Congressional  districts  exhibited  results  which  were  altered  by  either 
fraud  or  force.  When  we  consider  the  fact  that  since  the  formation  of  the 
Oovernment  there  have  been  but  few  Congresses,  if  any,  in  which  there  have 
not  been  elections  from  all  parts  of  the  Union  contested  on  these  very  grounds, 
and  then  bear  in  mind  that  at  no  time  in  our  history,  and  in  no  other  part  of 
our  country,  has  there  ever  been  so  keen  and  searching  a  scrutiny  into  the 
facts  of  election  as  that  to  which  the  South  has  been  subjected,  these  exag- 
gerated statements  of  force  and  fraud  must  be  reduced  to  their  real  pro- 
portions. 

But  suppose  the  allegations  which  Mr.  Blaine  puts  as  the  argument  of  those 
who  advocate  disfranchisement  be  true,  viz.,  that  the  present  political  con- 
dition of  the  South  is  practically  the  rule,  not  of  a  numerical  majority  of  the 
whole  people  black  and  white,  but  of  the  whites  as  one  unanimous  class;  and 
let  it  be  conceded  fully  that  such  a  political  condition,  if  it  actually  exists,  is 
an  evil,  what  is  the  precise  nature  and  extent  of  that  evil?  In  the  first  place, 
it  is  not  pretended  that  any  of  these  civil  rights  of  person  and  property  that 
negro  suffrage  was  intended  to  protect  have  been  invaded  or  endangered. 
Indeed,  this  seems  to  be  impliedly  admitted,  though  not  explicitly  stated  by 
Mr.  Blaine's  article.  The  object  of  the  fif  jeuth  amendment  is  fully  disclosed 
by  contemporaneous  debates.  It  was  to  protect  and  establish  free  labor  in 
the  South,  in  all  its  new  relations  of  rights  and  interests,  by  giving  to  the 
emancipated  laborer  the  political  means  of  maintaining  those  rights  and  in- 
terests. Now,  will  anyone  deny  that  this  pui"pose  has  not  achieved  Its  fullest 
consummation  under  existing  conditions?  Is  free  labor  anywhere  on  earth 
more  firmly  established,  more  fully  developsd,  or  more  absolute  in  its  de- 
mands (even  for  exaggerated  remuneration),  and  more  secure  and  unre- 
stricted in  the  enjoyment  of  its  gains  than  in  the  South?  In  all  respects, 
negro  freedom  and  negro  equality  before  the  law,  security  of  person  and 
property,  are  ample  and  complete.  To  protect  these,  should  they  be  invaded, 
he  has  the  franchise  with  which  a  freeman  can  maintain  his  rights.  He  may 
no  longer  allow  it  to  bo  used  as  a  tool  for  the  rapacity  of  political  adventurers; 
but  he  is  perfectly  conscious  of  the  fact  which  'Mr.  Blaine  states,  that  his 
right  to  vote  is  to  himself  and  his  race  a  shield  and  sword  of  dr^fense. 

The  question,  then,  recurs —conceding,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  in 
the  South  political  rule  represents  not  the  will  of  mere  numbers,  but  the  intel- 
lectual culture,  the  moral  strength,  the  material  interests,  the  skilled  labor, 
the  useful  capital  of  that  entire  section,  as  well  as  its  political  experience— is 
not  this  result  exactly  what  the  intelligence,  character,  and  property  of  the 
country  are  striving  to  effect  in  evei-y  Congi'essional  district  in  the  Union,  and 
5998 


36 

is  it  not  a  perfectly  legitimate  result  of  placing  the  ballot  in  the  hands  of  a 
population  unfamiliar  with  its  use,  and  who  are  peculiarly  susceptible  to  the 
influences  which  property  and  brains  have  always  exerted  in  popular  govern- 
ment? 

I  anticipate  the  answer.  It  is  that  the  property  and  intelligence  of  the 
other  sections  seek  to  control  the  votes  of  the  masses  by  methods  that  are 
legitimate  and  peaceful,  while  the  Southern  whites  have  achieved  their  power 
by  means  which  are  unlawful  and  unjust.  So  far  I  have  to  some  extent,  for 
the  sake  of  argument,  conceded  the  assumption  that  the  negi-o  vote  has  been 
subjected  to  the  forcible  control  of  the  white  race,  but  that  I  deny.  Refer- 
ence has  been  made  to  the  great  change  which  the  election  returns  show  in 
the  negro  vote  throughout  the  South.  The  phenomenon  is  easily  explained. 
Let  any  intelligent  northern  man  review  the  history  of  the  State  govern- 
ments of  the  South  for  the  last  ten  years  under  Republican  rule— their  gross 
and  shameless  dishonesty,  their  exorbitant  taxation,  their  reckless  expend- 
iture, their  oppression  of  all  native  interests,  the  social  agonies  through 
which  they  have  forced  all  that  was  good  and  pure  to  pass  as  through  a  fiery 
furnace;  the  character  of  the  men— many  of  them— they  have  placed  in 
power;  and  then  say  if  such  a  state  of  things  in  a  Northern  or  Western  State 
would  not  have  been  a  sure  and  natural  precursor  of  a  Republican  defeat,  so 
absolute  and  complete  that  the  very  name  of  the  party  would  have  become 
in  that  State  a  name  of  scorn  and  reproach.  Then  why  should  not  that  re- 
sult have  occurred  in  the  South?  Are  we  to  assume  that  the  black  race  have 
neither  instinct  nor  reason— have  no  sense,  no  intelligence,  no  conscience,  no 
independence;  that  in  every  Southern  State  the  thralldom  of  the  negro  vote 
to  party  leaders,  even  when  abandoned  by  them,  is  so  unquestioning  and 
abject  that  no  amount  of  misrule  can  cut  him  loose  from  them  or  teach  him 
the  advantage  of  a  more  natural  and  wholesome  political  alliance?  To  reason 
thus  is  simply  to  say  that  the  negro  is  unfit  for  suffrage,  and  to  surrender 
the  argument  to  those  who  hold  that  he  ought  to  be  disfranchised. 

But  this  is  not  true.  There  are  many  honest,  intelligent,  and  independent 
men  among  the  negroes  in  every  Southern  State.  There  are  thousands  of 
them  who  own  property,  who  cultivate  their  own  lands,  who  have  taxes  to 
pay,  and  who  appreciate  their  vital  interests  in  good  government.  This 
change  in  his  political  relations  which  has  been  the  subject  of  so  much  in 
credulous  comment  is  the  legitimate  result  of  the  experience  through  which 
he  has  gone. 

So  far  from  proving  his  weak  subordination  to  a  hostile  influence,  it  dem- 
onstrates what  Mr.  Blaine  says,  that  the  ballot  box  indeed  educated  him  to 
understand  his  own  interest,  and  that  he  has  learned  to  use  it  as  an  instru- 
ment to  protect  his  own  rights.  To  interfere  with  such  a  result  because  it 
does  not  square  with  the  necessities  or  the  ambitions  of  this  or  that  party 
seems  to  me  to  be  in  direct  contradiction  to  what  has  been  suggested  by  Mr. 
Blaine  himself.  He  says,  "  The  one  sure  mode  to  remand  the  State  that  re- 
belled against  the  Union  to  their  autonomy  was  to  give  suffrage  to  the  negro," 
leaving  (I  ventm-e  to  add)  to  self-government  the  evolution  of  the  proper 
remedies  for  whatever  of  evil  or  error  may  attend  the  working  out  of  this 
grave  and  critical  experiment. 

L.  Q.  C.  Lamar. 

Mr.  Hampton:  In  discussing  the  questions  upon  which  my  views  are  asked, 
the  hmits  prescribed  me  in  the  invitation  prevent  anything  more  than  a  mere 
statement  of  opinion.  Even  were  this  otherwise,  my  pi'esent  condition  for- 
bids me  to  enter  into  any  extended  or  elaborate  argiunent.  Mine  must  be, 
therefore,  simply  a  presentation  in  crude  form  of  the  views  I  entertain,  and 
have  entertained  for  some  years,  upon  the  grave  questions  submitted  for 
consideration.  I  shall  endeavor  to  write  in  a  spirit  free  from  all  partisanship 
5998 


37 

or  sectionalism,  with  the  sole  purpose  of  promoting  the  cause  of  truth  aud 
the  welfare  of  the  whole  country. 

The  first  question  is,  "  Shoiild  the  negro  be  disfranchised? "  There  has  been 
much  agitation  of  this  subject  recently — chiefly  at  the  North— and  many  who 
have  hitherto  been  the  most  eame^^t  advocates  of  negro  suffrage  begin  to 
think  that  the  bestowal  of  this  privilege  upon  him  has  resulted  in  failure. 
Those  who  thus  think  suppose  that  the  withdrawal  of  the  right  of  suffrage 
would  at  once  restore  the  ancient  and  normal  condition  of  things  in  the 
country;  would  reestablish  friendly  relations  between  the  races  of  the  South, 
and  in  so  far  as  it  would  diminish  representation,  would  lessen  the  influence 
of  that  section  in  national  affairs.  This  latter  argument,  I  regret  to  see,  has 
had  most  weight  with  a  large  class,  though  it  is  inconsistent  with  a  true  and 
catholic  patriotism — a  patriotism  which  looks  to  the  good  of  the  whole  Re- 
public, and  not  to  that  of  a  limited  section. 

But  whatever  may  be  the  motives  of  those  who  desire  the  disfranchise- 
ment of  the  negro,  the  accomplishment  of  such  a  result  has  been  rendered 
impossible  by  the  action  of  the  national  and  State  governments.  Great  and 
startling  as  have  been  the  political  mutations  of  the  last  few  years,  the  dis- 
franchisement of  the  negro  at  this  or  any  subsequent  period  would  be  more 
surprising  than  any  political  event  in  our  past  history.  The  question,  there- 
fore, does  not  belong  to  practical  politics,  and  is  a  mere  speculative  one. 
Considering  it  in  the  latter  aspect,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  answer  in  the  negative. 
Whatever  may  have  been  the  policy  of  conferring  the  right  of  voting  upon 
the  negro,  ignorant  and  incompstent  as  he  was  to  comprehend  the  high  re- 
sponsibility thrust  upon  him,  and  whatever  may  have  been  the  reasons  which 
dictated  this  dangerous  experiment,  the  deed  has  been  done  and  is  irrevo- 
cable. It  is  now  the  part  of  true  statesmanship  to  give  it  as  far  as  possible 
that  direction  which  will  be  most  beneficial  or  least  hurtful  to  the  body 
politic. 

How  is  this  to  be  accomplished? 

My  answer  would  be,  by  educating  the  negro  until  he  comprehends  the 
duties  and  responsibilities  of  citizenship.  By  "education  "  I  do  not  mean  the 
mere  acqiiisition  of  learning,  but  I  apply  the  term  in  its  broadest  sense.  The 
posse.ssion  of  the  rudiments  of  education— the  mere  mental  training  that  this 
implies— so  far  from  being  always  beneficial  to  its  possessor,  is  often'harm- 
ful.  Many  of  our  lately  enfranchised  citizens  make  the  first  use  of  their 
newly  acquired  ability  to  read  and  write  by  committing  forgery,  and  here  at 
least  they  have  manifested  a  wonderful  aptitude.  By  educating  them  I  mean 
that  their  moral  nature  should  be  cultivated,  pari  passu,  with  their  intellect. 
This  moral  education  is  of  far  greater  importance  than  an  intellectual  one. 
A  man  is  not  necessarily  a  better  citizen  because  he  can  read  and  write,  nor 
does  the  possession  of  these  acquirements  make  him,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
more  competent  to  understand  and  discharge  the  duties  of  citizenship.  I 
doubt  whether  the  citizens  of  that  State  which  makes  its  boast  that  more  of 
its  people  can  read  and  write  than  in  any  other  government  are  equal  in  art, 
in  culture,  and  in  statesmanship  to  the  Athenians  in  their  palmiest  days,  who 
were  without  these  accomplishments  the  most  intelligent  and  critical  of  po- 
litical constituencies. 

As  the  stability  of  our  institutions  depends  on  the  intelligence  ai/d  virtue 
of  our  citizens,  it  is  the  duty  of  every  patriot  to  promote  the  cause  of  true 
education. 

Especially  is  this  the  case  with  regard  to  that  unfortunate  people  who, 
after  centuries  of  servitude,  were  suddenly  called  to  exercise  the  highest 
duties  of  freemen.  They  came  to  the  discharge  of  these  duties  utterly  igno- 
rant, with  the  pre.iudices,  the  habits,  and  the  evils  inculcated  by  a  life  of 
slavery— merely  children  of  a  larger  growth,  and,  like  all  children,  full  ol 
credulity.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at,  then,  that  they  were  easily  misled  by 
59'J8 


3S 

the  wicked  and  designing  men  who  flocked  to  the  Soiith  when  she  was  pros- 
trate. But  in  spite  of  the  evil  advice  they  have  so  constantly  received  they 
have  on  the  whole  behaved  better  than  any  other  people  similarly  situated 
would  have  done,  and  the  whites  of  the  South  have  no  reason  to  chei-ishany 
ill  will  toward  the  blacks— nor  do  they.  And  the  time  is  rapidly  approaching 
when  the  colored  people  will  find  their  best  friends  among  the  thoughtful 
and  considerate  whites  of  the  South— a  class  by  no  means  small  at  present, 
and  which  is  growing  larger  and  stronger  every  hour.  But  this  digression 
leads  me  from  the  discussion  of  the  question  under  consideration;  and  my 
purpose,  as  declared  at  the  outset,  was  only  to  state  my  opinions,  not  to  enter 
into  argument  to  establish  them. 

From  the  remarks  already  made,  my  answer  to  the  first  question  sub- 
mitted is  easily  anticipated:  It  would  be  almost  impossible  to  disfranchise 
the  negro,  and,  if  possible,  it  would  not  be  carried  into  effect.  The  South  does 
not  desire  to  see  this  done,  and  without  her  aid  it  can  never  be  accomplished. 
The  negro  contributes  not  only  to  the  wealth  of  the  South,  but  to  her  politi- 
cal power,  and  she  is  indisposed  to  deprive  herself  of  any  of  her  advantages. 

As  the  negro  becomes  more  intelligent,  he  naturally  allies  himself  with  the 
more  conservative  of  the  whites,  for  his  observation  and  experience  both 
show  him  that  his  interests  are  identified  with  those  of  the  white  race  here. 

This  is  the  inevitable  tendency  of  things  as  they  now  stand  at  the  South, 
and  no  extraneous  pressure  can  change  a  result  which  is  as  sure  and  fl.xed 
as  any  other  natural  law. 

The  opinions  which  are  announced  above  have  not  been  hastily  formed  or 
only  recently  entertained.  They  are  the  result  of  very  earnest  and  long  re- 
flection, and  as  an  evidence  of  this  it  may  not  be  improper,  evtn  at  the  lisk 
of  appearing  to  touch  too  closely  on  personal  matters,  to  state  the  position 
that  I  have  occupied  in  regard  to  these  questions  since  the  close  of  the  war. 
In  1865,  even  before  I  had  received  my  parole,  I  spoke,  and  was  the  first  man 
at  the  South  who  did  so,  to  a  large  audience  of  negroes  upon  the  changed  re- 
lations between  the  two  races,  and  I  gave  to  them  the  same  advice  that  I 
have  given  from  that  day  to  this.  In  186",  in  the  city  of  Columbia,  at  the 
earnest  invitation  of  the  colored  psople  themselves.  I  spoke  to  them  again, 
and  upon  that  occasion  advocated  qualified  suffrage.  It  must  be  borne  in 
mind  that  at  the  time  this  was  done  some  of  the  most  prominent  leaders  of 
the  Republican  party  had  taken  decided  gi'ound  again 5t  giving  the  right  of 
suffrage  to  the  negro.  It  is  unnecessary  to  give  all  the  reasons  that  induced 
me  to  take  this  course;  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  I  fully  realized  that  when  a 
man  had  besn  made  a  citizen  of  the  United  States  he  could  not  be  debarred 
the  right  of  voting  on  account  of  his  color.  Such  exclusion  would  be  opposed 
to  the  entire  theory  of  republican  institutions,  and  I  foresaw  that,  unless  the 
States,  while  they  had  the  right  of  regulating  the  elective  franchise,  pre- 
scribed the  qualifications  of  their  voters,  the  National  Government  would  in 
tervene.  and  we  should  have  universal  suffrage  forced  upon  us.  3Iy  object, 
then,  was,  by  fixing  an  educational  qualification  as  a  prerequisite  for  voting, 
to  allow  the  most  intelligent  of  the  colored  people  to  vote  at  once,  and  this 
would  have  been  an  inducement  to  the  rest  of  the  race  to  endeavor  to  qualify 
themselves  for  the  attainment  and  exercise  of  this  privilege  by  securing  the 
necessary  education.  The  admission  of  the  limited  number  who  would  thus 
nave  been  allowed  to  vote  at  first  would  have  produced  no  confusion  in  the 
machinery  of  the  State  governments,  and  the  relations  bet  ween  the  two  races 
would  have  been  friendly  and  harmonious;  but  the  course  that  I  recom- 
mended was  not  adopted,  and  we  of  the  South  have  been  subjected  to  all  the 
humiliation  and  crime  brought  about  by  reconstruction.  As  the  negro  is 
now  acquiring  education  and  property,  he  is  becoming  more  conservative, 
and  naturally  desires  to  assist  in  the  establishment  and  maintenance  of  good 
government  and  home  rule.  I  have  endeavored— and  I  think  not  without 
5998 


39 

success— to  teach  him  here  how  to  use  the  vote  for  his  owx  good,  and  the 
benefit  of  the  political  society  in  which  he  lives  and  with  which  his  future 
prosperity  is  identified.  The  result  has  been  shown  in  the  last  two  general 
elections  in  this  State,  where  thousands  ot  negroes  voted  with  their  white 
friends;  and  if  any  doubt  is  entertained  of  the  sincerity  of  these  voters,  and 
any  impartial  visitor  from  the  North  will  take  the  pains  to  inquire  through- 
out the  State,  I  will  venture  the  assertion  that  in  every  locality  he  will  find 
as  earnest,  as  active,  and  as  consistent  Democrats  among  the  colored  people 
as  among  the  whites,  and  these  colored  Democrats  are  generally  among  the 
more  intelligent  of  their  race. 

Under  these  circumstances,  as  the  negi'o  is  endeavoring  very  generally  to 
qualify  himself  for  the  duties  of  citizenship,  the  wi-ong  of  disfranchising  him 
would  be  as  great  as  that  inflicted  upon  us  in  the  first  instance,  when  uni- 
versal suffrage  was  given  to  him  while  he  was  yet  utterly  unprepared  to 
exercise  it. 

The  second  question  to  which  my  attention  has  been  invited  Ls,  "Ought 
the  negro  to  have  been  enfranchised?"  It  may  seem  inconsistent  with  the 
views  I  have  expressed  in  the  first  part  of  this  article  to  say  that  I  do  not 
think  he  should  have  been  enfranchised  at  the  time  and  in  the  manner  in 
which  it  was  done.  My  first  objection  is  that  the  mode  that  was  pursued,  if 
not  directly  unconstitutional,  was  certainly  extracoastitutional,  and  I  am 
utterly  opposed  to  any  violation,  direct  or  indirect,  ot  that  instrument. 
Whenever  a  political  party  thinks  it  is  necessary,  in  order  to  secure  its  su- 
premacy, to  act  outside  of  the  Constitution,  and  this  is  permitted  by  the 
people  without  rebuke,  we  may  be  sure  that  we  have  entered  upon  that 
downward  plane  which  every  previous  republic  has  traveled  to  destruction. 
The  only  hope  of  maintaining  our  institutions  in  their  integrity  is  by  a  strict 
observance  of  the  Constitution,  and  no  party  should  be  allowed  to  remain  a 
moment  in  power  which  countenances  in  any  manner  any  violation  of  its 
sacred  provisions. 

My  next  objection  to  conferring  suffrage  on  the  negro  immediately  upon 
his  emancipation  was  that  he  was  totally  incompetent  to  exercise  or  even  to 
understand  the  rights  conferred  upon  him.  The  injection  of  such  a  mass 
of  ignorant  and  untrained  voters  into  the  body  politic  was  the  most  perilous 
strain  to  which  our  institutions  have  ever  been  subjected,  and  the  danger 
arising  from  this  experiment  has  not  yet  passed.  It  was  a  crime  against  the 
whites  of  the  South  to  disfranchise  them  in  large  part  while  enfranchising 
the  negro,  and  thus  practically  placing  all  the  rights  of  the  former  at  the 
mercy  of  newly  emancipated  slaves.  All  these  difficulties  might  have  been 
avoided  had  partial  suffrage  been  adopted  in  the  first  instance  and  the 
relations  between  the  two  races  been  allowed  to  adjust  themselves  by  the 
unimpeded  action  of  natural  laws.  This  course  would  have  been  infinitely 
better  for  the  negro  himself,  as  it  would  gradually  have  trained  him  in  the 
exercise  of  the  rights  of  freemen,  and  would  have  prevented  that  antagonism 
between  the  two  races  which  has  resulted  in  so  many  instances  to  the  injury 
of  the  negro. 

Those  who  assert  that  the  negi-o  should  have  been  enfranchised  have  not 
hesitated  to  declare  that  the  Indian,  the  native  freeman  of  America,  and  the 
Chinese,  who  have  sought  our  shores  in  such  numbers,  should  be  debarred 
that  right.  There  seems  to  be  some  inconsistency  in  these  views,  and  the 
advocates  of  negro  enfranchisement  should  be  callsd  on  to  show  why  the 
privilege  should  be  granted  to  him,  the  newly  emancipated  slave,  and  yet 
denied  to  men  who  have  always  been  free  and  who  pu.ssess  more  intelligence. 

When  the  negro  was  made  a  citizen  it  followed  as  a  logical  consequence, 
under  the  theory  of  our  institutions,  that  he  must  become  a  voter.    My  ob- 
jection to  his  enfranchisement,  therefore,  is  confined  to  the  time  when  and 
the  mode  in  which  this  privilege  was  conferred  upon  him. 
5»98 


40 

I  have  answered  these  questions  with  entire  frankness,  in  the  hope  that 
such  a  discussion,  free  from  political  acrimony  and  partisan  misconceptions, 
would  encourage  the  calm  and  conscientious  consideration  of  the  whole 

subject. 

Wade  Hampton. 

Mr.  Garfield:  The  editor  of  the  Review  has  asked  my  opinion  on  the  two 
questions  discussed  by  Mr.  Blaine.  Were  these  questions  proposed  to  the  two 
Houses  of  Congress  I  have  no  doubt  that  it  would  be  declared,  with  hardly  a 
dissenting  vote,  that  the  negro  ought  not  to  be  disfranchised.  On  the  second 
question  the  formal  vote  might  not  be  unanimous,  but  I  have  no  doubt  that 
a  large  majority  would  declare  that  the  negro  ought  to  have  been  enfran- 
chised. 

If  it  shall  appear  on  a  new  roll  call  in  1879  that  none  are  in  favor  of  disfran- 
chising the  negro  and  few  are  ready  to  declare  that  he  ought  not  to  have 
been  enfranchised,  we  may  reasonably  conclude  tbat  these  measures  are 
gaining  sti-ength  and  that  their  wisdom  will  finally  be  fully  vindicated  by  the 
popular  judgment. 

But  a  vote  on  these  questions  at  this  time  by  "ayes  and  noes"  is  mislead- 
ing, for  it  does  not  disclose  the  real  differences  of  opinion  which  prevail 
among  the  people;  nor  does  it  reach  the  marrow  of  the  controversy  out  of 
which  the  questions  themselves  arise.  In  fact,  both  of  the  great  parties  are 
influenced  by  the  strongest  political  motives  to  maintain  at  least  a  profession 
of  friendship  for  the  negro.  Political  interest  will  therefore  prevent  a  direct 
assault  upon  the  constitutional  amendments.  It  is  practically  impassible  to 
rescind  them;  and  lb 'lieveit  isan  historical  fact  that  no  government  based  on 
the  national  will  has  ever  withdrawn  the  right  of  suffrage  when  once  granted. 

But  below  the  formal  questions  which  head  this  article  lies  this  deeper 
one:  Will  enfranchisement  finally  prove  a  blessing  or  a  curse  to  the  negro 
and  an  element  of  weakness  or  of  strength  to  oui*  institutions? 

Not  long  since  a  citizen  of  great  ability  and  national  prominence  said  to 
me:  "Your  party  has  ruined  the  Government  of  our  fathers.  In  carrying  up 
the  walls  of  our  national  temple  you  have  iised  untempered  mortar,  and  your 
work  will  crumble  and  fall,  involving  in  ruin  the  whole  structure.  The  negro 
belongs  to  an  inferior  race;  is  without  intellectual  stamina  and  without  any 
strong,  enduring  qualities  of  mind.  Though  he  has  been  on  our  continent 
but  a  few  generations,  he  has  wholly  forgotten  the  religion,  the  language, 
and  even  the  traditions  of  his  native  country.  He  has  no  permanent  individ- 
uality of  character.  Like  the  c'aameleon,  he  takes  the  color  of  h?s  sui'round- 
ings;  and  as  a  voter  he  will  forever  be  a  source  of  weakness  and  danger  to 
our  institutions." 

This  is  perhaps  the  most  powerful  arraignment  of  the  policy  of  enfran- 
chisement which  has  bean  made.  In  reply  it  should  be  said,  in  the  outset, 
that  those  who  denounce  the  enfranchisement  of  the  negro  as  unwise  and 
dangerous  are  bound  to  show  a  better  adjxistment  of  his  status.  Even  the 
def'jnders  of  the  old  system  will  hardly  deny  that  the  continued  existence 
of  chattel  slavery  was  impossible.  It  was  the  sum  of  all  injustice  to  the  ne- 
gro himself  and  a  standing  declaration  of  war  against  the  public  peace.  Its 
destruction  did  not  arise  from  mere  meddlesomeness  on  the  part  of  the  North; 
the  f  eeUng  against  slavery  was  woi'ld-wide,  and  we  were  among  the  last  of 
modern  nations  to  realize  its  infamy  and  remove  it  from  our  system. 

Between  slavery  and  full  citizenship  there  was  no  safe  middle  gi-ound. 
To  strike  the  shackles  from  the  negro's  limbs,  to  declare  by  law  that  he 
should  not  be  bought  or  sold,  scourged  or  branded  at  the  will  of  Lis  master, 
and  then  to  leave  him  with  no  means  of  defending  his  rights  before  the 
courts  and  juries  of  the  country— to  arm  him  with  no  legal  or  political  weaj)- 
ons  of  defense — would  have  been  an  injustice  hai'dly  less  cruel  to  him,  and  a 
5S98 


41 

policy  even  more  dangerous  to  the  public  peace,  than  slavery  itself.  To 
leave  the  defense  of  all  the  rights  of  person  and  property  of  the  manumitted 
slave  to  those  who  had  just  voted  unanimously  against  his  freedom  would 
have  been  alike  dishonorable  and  cruel.  Indeid,  this  experiment  was  at- 
tempted soon  after  the  close  of  the  war.  While  the  seceding  States  were 
under  military  control,  the  white  people  of  the  South  were  invited  to  aid  in 
solving  the  difficulties  of  the  negro  problem  by  electing  their  own  legisla- 
tures and  establishing  provisional  governments.  The  result  was  that  in  1865, 
1866,  and  a  portion  of  1867,  their  legislatures,  notably  those  of  Mississippi  and 
Louisiana,  restricted  the  personal  liberty  of  the  n  ^gro,  prohibited  him  from 
owning  real  estate,  and  enacted  vagrant  and  peonage  laws,  whereby  negroes 
■yere  sold  at  auction  for  the  payment  of  taxes  or  fines,  and  were  vii'tually  re- 
duced to  a  slavery  as  real  as  that  which  existed  before  the  war. 

Congre.ss  was,  therefore,  compelled  to  choose  between  a  policy  which 
would  have  made  the  negro  the  permanent  ward  of  the  nation,  and  by  con- 
stant interference  with  the  local  laws  of  the  States  would  protect  his  personal 
and  property  rights,  or  to  place  in  his  own  hands  the  legal  and  political  means 
of  self-defense.  It  was  a  choice  between  perpetual  interference  with  the 
autonomy  of  the  States— a  policy  at  war  with  the  fundamental  principles  of 
our  Government  and  intolerable  to  the  vrhite  population  of  the  South— and 
the  risk  of  admitting  to  the  suifi-age  4,()IX),(X)0  people  who  were,  as  yet,  in 
a  large  measure  unfitted  for  its  wise  and  intelligent  exercise.  In  review- 
ing the  situation  as  it  existed  from  1867  to  1869, 1  can  not  conceive  on  what 
grounds  the  wisdom  of  the  choice  then  made  can  be  denied.  Possibly  a  plan 
of  granting  suffrage  gradually  as  the  negro  became  more  intelligent  would 
have  been  wiser;  but  the  practical  difficulties  of  such  a  plan  would  have  been 
very  great,  and  its  discu.ssion  at  this  time  can  have  no  pi-actical  value. 

The  ballot  was  given  to  the  negro  not  so  much  to  enable  him  to  govern 
others  as  to  prevent  others  from  misgoverning  him.  Suffrage  is  the  sword 
and  shield  of  our  law,  the  best  armament  that  libsrty  offers  to  the  citizen. 

It  would  be  strange  indeed  if  the  negro  should  always  use  this  weapon 
with  wisdom  and  honesty.  That  he  would  sometimes  be  influenced  by  cor- 
rupt leaders  was  inevitable;  but  that,  in  spite  of  all  drawbacks,  the  suffrage 
has  done  and  is  doing  much  for  his  protection  and  elevation  is  evident  from 
the  anxiety  shown  by  all  political  parties  to  prove  themselves  his  friend. 

His  progress  under  liberty  may  have  disappointed  some  uf  his  oversanguine 
friends,  but  in  a  still  more  marked  way  it  has  disappointed  the  expectations 
of  those  who  opposed  his  freedom. 

Dullness  of  intellect,  a  low  state  of  morals,  a  want  of  thrift  and  foresiglit— 
all  these  were  the  inevitable  results  of  generations  of  slavery,  which  afforded 
no  incentive  to  the  development  of  those  qualities  that  make  citizens  inde- 
pendent, intelligent,  and  self-reliant.  If  the  negro3s  had  lost  the  passion  for 
acquiring  property,  if  they  had  shown  themselves  unwilling  to  work,  neither 
liberty  nor  suffrage  could  have  saved  them.  They  would  finally  disappear, 
aa  the  Indians  are  disappearing,  and  for  the  same  reasons.  But  the  evidences 
are  increasmg  on  every  hand  that  they  are  successfully  solving  the  problem 
of  their  own  future  by  a  commendable  degree  of  industry  and  by  vei-y  earn- 
est efforts  to  educate  their  children.  In  these  efforts  they  are  outstripping 
the  class  known  in  the  days  of  slavery  as  "  the  poor  whites."  While  they  and 
their  political  friends  had  the  control  of  legislation  in  the  Southern  States 
vigorous  measures  were  adopted  t/i  ostablisti  and  maintain  jjublic  schools, 
and  thougn  these  efforts  Iiave  been  greatly  discouraged  by  recent  State  legis- 
lation, tneir  thirst  for  knowledge  has  not  been  qur-nched.  There  is  every  in- 
dication that  in  the  next  generation  they  will  show  a  marked  advance  in 
intelligence. 

They  are  acquiring  property  far  more  rapidly  than  their  white  neighbors 
expected.  In  the  Freedman's  Saving  Bank  alone,  the  failure  of  which  was  so 
5998 


42 

calamitotis,  they  had  deposited  surplus  earnings  to  the  amount  of  $3,000,000. 
They  are  gradually  becoming  owners  of  real  estate  and  of  comfortable  homes. 
In  one  county  of  South  Carolina  they  are  now  paying  .*300,000  of  taxes  per  an- 
num, and  this  is  neither  an  isolated  nor  an  exaggerated  example.  In  short, 
they  are  gradually  gaining  those  two  elements  of  power,  "intelligence  and 
wealth,"  which  Senator  Thurman  says  wiU  in  the  long  run  control  the  poli- 
tics of  a  community. 

As  an  example  of  what  the  negro  can  do  under  more  favorable  circum- 
stances than  those  which  have  existed  in  the  South,  I  refer  to  the  settlement 
of  the  Virginia  Military  Eeserve  in  Ohio  between  the  Scioto  and  Miami 
rivers.  Late  in  the  last  and  early  in  the  present  century  many  Virginia  sol- 
diers of  the  war  of  independence  removed  to  their  lands  in  Ohio.  Most  of 
them  were  antislavery  men  by  conviction,  and  brought  their  slaves  with 
them  for  the  purpose  of  manumission.  These  negroes  settled  near  their  late 
masters,  enjoyed  their  friendship  and  counsel,  and  did  not  encounter  the 
prejudices  of  race  and  color  which  they  might  have  met  among  men  of  north- 
ern birth.  Under  such  conditions  they  have  lived  for  two  or  three  genera- 
tions. There  has  been  scarcely  any  admixture  of  blood  and  no  serious  colli- 
sion of  interests,  and  to-day  in  central  and  southern  Ohio  their  descendants, 
to  the  number  of  several  thousand  families,  rank  fairly  with  other  intelli- 
gent, respectable,  and  well-to-do  citizens  of  the  State,  and  are  in  all  respects 
greatly  superior  to  their  Virginia  ancestors. 

Much  as  the  negroes  of  the  South  have  accomplished  since  emancipation, 
their  most  unfriendly  critics  will  hardly  venture  to  assert  that  they  have 
had  a  fair  chance  to  test  the  influences  of  freedom  and  citizenship.  Our  the- 
ory of  government  is  based  upon  the  belief  that  the  suffrage  carries  with  it 
individual  responsibility,  stimulates  the  activity,  and  promotes  the  intelli- 
gence and  self-respect  of  the  voter.  To  accomplish  these  results,  the  voter 
must  be  allowed  to  exercise  his  rights  freely  and  without  restraint. 

Doubtless  the  mere  property  rights  of  the  southern  negroes  are  every  year 
being  more  and  more  fully  recognized  by  their  white  neighbors,  but  in  many 
parts  of  the  South  it  is  the  merest  mockery  to  pretend  that  the  suffrage  has 
been  free.  The  spirit  of  domination  which  slavery  engendered  has  led  a 
large  portion  of  the  white  population  to  consider  the  efifort  of  the  negro  to 
cast  his  ballot  in  his  own  way  as  an  act  of  intolerable  impertinence.  Open 
violence,  concealed  fraud,  and  threatened  loss  of  employment  in  many  parts 
of  the  South  have  virtually  destroyed  the  suffrage  and  deprived  the  negro  of 
all  the  benefits  which  it  was  intended  to  confer. 

Hitherto  these  outrages  have  been  justified  or  excused  on  the  gi'ound  that 
they  were  provoked  by  the  interference  of  the  national  authorities  with  local 
self-government  in  the  South,  but  during  the  past  two  years  there  has  been 
no  ground  even  for  this  poor  excuse.  And  now  we  have  a  new  ground  of  jus- 
tification. A  leading  politician  of  Louisiana,  testifying  before  the  Teller 
committee  a  few  days  ago,  declared  that  the  murders  and  other  acts  of  vio- 
lence which  attended  the  late  election  in  that  State  were  provoked  by  "in- 
cendiary speeches"  of  Republican  leaders.  In  his  cross-examination  this 
witness  favored  us  with  his  definition  of  political  incendiarism.  When  a*ked 
to  give  examples,  he  cited  the  fact  that  a  certain  campaign  orator  '•  had  re- 
ferred to  the  old  days  of  slavery,  saying  that  old  men  who  had  been  slave- 
holders and  whose  ideas  were  fixed  in  the  past  would  not  be  as  likely  to 
respect  the  rights  and  advance  the  interests  of  the  blacks  as  younger  men, 
who  had  grown  up  under  the  new  condition  of  affairs."  Also,  in  discussing 
the  industrial  relation  of  the  negroes  to  their  employers,  the  incendiary  oi-a- 
tor  told  the  negroes  that  "they  were  paying  too  high  rent  for  land,  often  as 
much  each  year  as  the  land  would  sell  for."  Such  discussion  the  witness  con- 
sidered so  dangerous  as  to  justify  the  wrath  and  violence  of  the  white  popu- 
lation against  the  Republican  party. 
5^93 


43 

Until  there  is  one  acknowledged  law  of  liberty  for  white  and  black  men 
alike,  it  is  idle  to  claim  that  the  amendments  of  the  Constitution  are  obeyed, 
either  in  spirit  or  letter,  or  that  enfranchisement  has  had  a  fair  trial. 

The  plea  of  "  incendiary  speeches  "  will  not  be  accepted  by  a  liberty-loving 
nation  as  a  justification  of  murder,  violence,  or  any  invasion  of  the  rights  of 
citizens,  however  humble,  however  black.  The  wisdom  of  enfranchisement 
can  not  be  impeached  by  prophesying  in  advance  that  it  will  prove  a  disas- 
trous failure,  and  then  endeavoring  per  fas  aut  nefas  to  make  it  a  failure. 

If  the  Democratic  party  does  not  disclaim  and  effectively  resist  such  out- 
rages and  invasions  of  constitutional  rights,  we  shall  again  witness  the  de- 
plorable spectacle  of  parties— divided  by  geographical  lines,  a  solid  South  and 
a  united  North— arrayed  in  political  opposition. 

Such  a  conflict  will  not  only  retard  the  advancement  of  the  negro  and  de- 
lay the  restoration  of  national  harmony,  but  it  will  inflict  immeasurable 
injury  upon  the  social  and  business  prosperity  of  the  South  itself.  Emigra- 
tion follows  the  path  of  liberty.  Free  and  independent  Americans  will  not 
voluntarily  become  citizens  of  a  State  in  which  full  liberty  of  debate  and  of 
the  ballot  is  not  assured. 

Since  the  war,  it  is  probable  that  more  emigrants  from  the  North  and 
from  Europe  have  settled  in  Texas  than  in  all  the  other  Gulf  States  com- 
bined. And  this  is  because  the  traditions  and  sentiments  of  the  Texan  peo- 
ple have  been  regarded  as  more  favorable  to  freedom  of  personal  opinion 
and  political  action  than  those  of  the  people  of  neighboring  Southern  States. 

If  the  policy  of  repression  and  exclusion,  which  unhappily  prevails  in  most 
of  the  late  slaveholding  States,  shall  be  maintained,  each  new  census  will  dis- 
close such  a  relative  loss  of  population  and  wealth  as  will  prove  every  way 
disastrous  to  their  political  influence  and  commercial  prosperity.  But  par- 
ties will  not  always  divide  on  the  color  line.  I  have  no  doubt  that  enlight- 
ened self-interest  will  ere  long  lead  the  people  of  the  South  to  seek  prosperity 
by  making  the  suffrage  in  fact,  as  it  already  is  in  law,  free  and  safe  to  11  on 
whom  the  Constitution  has  conferred  it.  When  that  day  c:mes,  we  shall 
enjoy  a  national  unity  which  slavery  would  have  made  forever  impossible; 
and  the  wisdom  of  enfranchisement  will  be  fully  vindicated.  Beneficent  as 
its  results  have  already  been,  they  are  destined  to  be  still  more  fruitful  of 
good  in  the  future. 

In  conclusion.  I  answer  these  questions  by  saying  that  on  every  ground  of 
private  right,  of  public  justice,  and  national  safety,  the  negro  oiight  to  have 
been  enfranchised.  For  the  same  reasons,  strengthened  and  confirmed  by 
our  experience,  he  ought  not  to  be  disfranohi.sed.  Reviewing  the  elements 
of  the  larger  problem,  I  do  not  doubt  that  enfranchisement  will,  in  the  long 
run,  greatly  promote  the  intellectual,  moral,  and  industrial  welfare  of  the 
negro  race  in  America;  and,  instead  of  imperiling  the  safety  of  our  institu- 
tions, wiU  remove  from  them  the  gi'eatest  danger  which  has  ever  threatened 

them. 

James  A.  Garfield. 

Mr.  Stephens:  The  questions  submitted  for  inquiry  and  consideration  in 
the  paper  now  presented  involve  problems  of  the  gravest  and  most  interest- 
ing character  that  ever  engaged  the  attention  of  philanthropists  or  states- 
men. 

It  is  not  the  purpose  of  the  undersigned,  in  taking  part  in  the  discussion 
or  in  connecting  himself  with  it,  to  .enter  at  this  time  into  a  consideration  of 
the  merits  in  the  abstract  of  either  of  these  questions. 

The  great  problem  involved  in  the  first  is  now  in  a  state  of  solution,  and  it 
does  not  seem  to  be  at  all  practicaV>le  or  advisable,  in  the  midst  of  this  proc- 
ess, to  be  mooting  or  answering  the  reasons  which  led  originally  to  the  policy 
on  which  it  was  founded,  or  the  propi-iety  of  its  adoption. 
5:  OS 


44 

The  matter,  according  to  Mr.  Blaine's  own  assumption,  has  been  settled 
beyond  tlie  power  ol  even  constitutional  remedy.  No  arguments  drawn  ab 
incouvenienti  are  allowable;  they  are  precluded  by  conclusions  drawn  ab 
impossibili  This  is  the  announcement.  Then  why  agitate  or  disturb  if? 
Should  it  not,  rather,  be  the  object  of  all  good  citizens,  of  all  parties,  and  all 
friends  of  humanity,  whether  originally  favoring  that  policy  or  not,  to  give 
it  a  fair  trial,  with  an  earnest  and  hopeful  effort  for  its  success,  leaving  the 
future  in  this  matter,  as  in  other  like  problems,  to  take  care  of  itself? 

The  discussion  of  these  questions  now,  therefore,  seems  to  be  quite  as 
irrelevant  as  impracticable.  The  undersigned,  however,  wUl  avail  himself 
of  the  occasion  thus  presented  to  make  a  few  general  observations  upon  the 
paper  submitted: 

1.  Mr.  Blaine,  after  thus  setting  forth  the  perfect  inviolability  of  the  right 
of  suffrage,  constitutionally  secured  to  the  colored  man,  uses  these  very  nota- 
ble words: 

"In  the  meanwhile,  seeing  no  mode  of  legally  or  equitably  depriving  the 
negro  of  his  suffrage,  except  with  unwelcome  penalties  to  themselves,  the 
Southern  States  as  a  whole— differing  in  degree,  but  the  same  in  effect— have 
striven  to  achieve  by  indirect  and  unlawful  means  what  they  can  not  achieve 
directly  and  lawfully.  They  have,  so  far  as  possible,  made  negro  suffrage  of 
none  effect.    They  have  done  this  against  law  and  against  justice." 

These  are  grave  assertions.  Where  is  the  evidence  to  support  them?  On 
them  issue  is  directly  joined. 

The  charge  in  substance  is  that  the  Southern  States  as  a  whole,  with  com- 
mon design,  have  striven  to  deprive  the  colored  man  of  his  right  to  vote  by 
indirect  and  unlawful  means.  Wherein  have  "the  Southern  States  as  a 
whole,"  or  a  single  one  of  them,  done,  or  attempted  to  do,  any  such  thing? 
States  act  by  their  legislatures,  courts,  and  executives.  Has  it  been  by  legis- 
lative acts,  or  executive  acts,  or  judicial  decisions?  If  so,  the  production  of 
these  high-handed  usui-pations  is  invoked. 

The  undersigned  speaks  mainly  of  his  own  State,  Georgia.  That  wrongs, 
and  great  wrongs,  have  been  committed  by  individuals  at  the  polls  in  that 
State  and  in  many  of  the  Southern  States,  or  perhaps  all  of  them,  he  does 
not  question— wrongs  to  whites  as  well  as  blacks;  but  he  does  question  if 
greater  wrongs  have  been  pei-petrated  in  the  Southern  States  in  this  respect 
than  in  the  Northern  States.  "  The  world  is  a  school  of  wrong,"  and  skilled 
proficients  "swarm  about"  everywhere.  But  that  the  Southei-n  States,  in 
whole  or  in  part,  in  any  way  in  which  States  can  act,  have  ever  arrayed 
themselves  against  their  own  constitutions  and  laws,  to  say  nothing  of  Fed- 
eral obligations,  in  an  effort  to  deprive  the  colored  man  of  the  right  to  vote 
is  utterly  denied.  It  is  true  in  Georgia,  and  perhaps  in  other  States,  the 
constitutional  requirement  of  a  poll  tax  of  a  dollar  for  school  pui^Doses  does 
practically  keep  several  thousand  colored  voters  from  the  polls;  but  it  is  a 
provision  wise  and  just  in  its  objects,  and  applies  equally  to  white  and  black. 
The  constitutional  provision,  also,  making  conviction  of  felony  a  forfeiture 
of  the  franchise,  is  likely  in  its  workings  to  exclude  a  much  larger  number 
of  colored  voters  from  the  polls  than  whites;  but  no  one  questions  the  justice 
of  such  exclusion  either  of  whites  or  blacks. 

The  constitution  of  Georgia,  before  the  fifteenth  amendment  was  even 
proposed,  secured  the  right  of  suffrage  to  coloi'ed  and  white  alike;  and  it  has 
been  the  object  of  the  State  government  in  all  its  branches  to  maintain  this 
franchise,  in  its  purity  and  integrity,  from  that  day  to  this.  It  was  but  yes- 
terday the  undersigned  saw  in  the  Augusta  Evening  News  the  charge  of 
Judge  Snead,  of  that  judicial  circuit,  upon  this  very  subject,  an  extract  from 
which  may  not  be  deemed  impertinent  or  irrelevant  in  this  connection.  It 
shows  to  what  full,  free,  and  even  abusive  extent  the  right  of  suffrage  is 
carried  in  that  State  by  the  colored  people.  Here  is  the  extract: 
5998 


45 

"After  treating  of  general  subjects  prescribed  by  law,  the  judge  gave  the 
following  strong  points  in  reference  to  the  freedom  of  the  ballot  at  the  recent 
elections.  He  said:  '  Outside  of  all  these,  I  desire  to  direct  your  attention  to 
one  section  of  the  penal  code,  which  was  intended  to  guard  the  freedom  of 
the  elective  franchise  and  the  purity  of  the  ballot  box.  It  is  section  4569,  and 
is  in  these  words:  "  If  any  person  shall  hereafter  buy  or  sell,  or  offer  to  buy 
or  sell,  or  be  concerned  in  buying  or  selling  a  vote,  or  shall  unlawfully  vote 
at  any  election  which  may  be  held  in  any  county  of  this  State,  such  person 
shall  be  indicted  for  misdemeanor,  and,  on  con-s-iction,  shall  be  punished  by 
imprisonment  and  labor  in  the  penitentiary  for  a  term  of  not  less  than  one 
nor  more  than  four  years." 

■"In  this  connection  I  read  for  your  consideration  extracts  from  our  city 
papers,  which  profess  to  portray  certain  scenes  at  the  last  municipal  election 
in  Augusta: 

"  '  "  Money  was  freely  exhibited  and  offered  for  votes,  and  as  freely  and  as 
openly  taken.  The  price  of  a  vote  ranged  from  10  cents  to  |5,  according  to 
the  desire  of  the  purchaser  to  obtain  the  vote  and  the  estimate  put  by  the 
seller  upon  the  value  of  the  franchise.  Hundreds  of  votes  were  thus  openly 
disposed  of  in  plain  view  of  everybody.  In  some  instances  the  voter  held 
the  ballot  at  arm's  length  with  one  hand  and  held  out  the  other  for  the 
money  which  was  to  pay  for  his  vote."    (Chronicle  and  Constitutionalist.) 

"  '  "  The  election  day  has  passed,  and  with  it  a  day  has  gone  to  record  that 
will  stand  as  a  foul  stain  upon  the  fair  name  and  reputation  of  a  city  grown 
old  in  honor,  and  up  to  yesterday  unsullied  by  the  bold  hand  of  barefaced 
bribery  and  opsn  corruption.  Votes  were  openly  bought  and  sold  with 
money  and  whisky  as  a  price — one  hand  holding  the  vote  and  the  other 
stretched  out  for  the  reward."    (Evening  Xews.) 

"  '  I  know  not  whether  this  is  true,  but  it  has  been  published  as  a  part  of  the 
history  of  this  our  day  and  generation.  It  could  not  have  escaped  the  obser- 
vation, and  must  have  excited  the  salicitude,  of  many  good  citizens.  If  true, 
it  is  a  sad  commentary  upon  the  corruption  of  the  times,  when  the  purity  of 
the  ballot  box  is  thus  violated  in  the  broad  light  of  day;  when  the  elective 
franchise  is  made  a  purchasable  commodity,  and  voters  are  bought  and  sold 
as  so  many  herds  of  cattle.  The  whole  theory  of  our  Government  is  in  the 
opposite  direction.  It  rests  upon  the  free  consent  of  the  governed.  This,  at 
least,  should  be  the  practice  in  every  department,  from  the  Federal  head  at 
Washington,  through  the  various  ramifications  in  the  States,  down  to  the 
humblest  municipality.  The  liberty  of  the  citizen,  the  security  of  property — 
aye,  the  whole  fabric  of  society  rests  for  its  base  upon  the  free,  unbought  suf- 
frages of  the  people.  *  *  *  Present  aU  parties  implicated,  whether  high 
or  low.  *  *  *  Let  your  investigation  be  strictly  impartial— not  confined 
to  one,  but  extend  to  all  sides— and  if  your  sword,  like  that  which  flamed  at 
Eden's  gate,  turns  a  double  edge,  let  the  great  blow  fall.' " 

This  record  of  one  of  our  judges  truly  exhibits  the  tone  of  the  judiciary 
throughout  the  State  of  Georgia.  It  is  needless  to  add,  perhaps,  that  the 
votes  which  were  so  openly  sold  in  the  market  were  chiefly,  if  not  entirely, 
those  of  the  lowest  class  of  the  colored  race.  The  same  is  true  of  the  elec- 
tions held  near  the  same  time  in  Atlanta,  Macon,  and  other  parts  of  the 
State,  according  to  newspaper  accounts. 

2.  Mr.  Blaine  clearly  intimates  his  own  belief ,  as  well  as  thatof  other  orig- 
inal advocates  of  the  enfranchisement  of  the  colored  race,  that  "  negro  suf- 
frage has  failed  to  attain  the  ends  hoped  for  when  the  franchise  was  con- 
ferred *  *  *  failed  to  achieve  anything  except  to  increase  the  political 
weight  and  influence  of  those  against  whom  and  in  spite  of  whom  his  en- 
franchisement was  secured." 

Pray,  what  were  the  ends  thus  hoped  foi"?  Without  extended  comment 
on  these  sentences,  as  to  the  character  of  the  motives  actuating  some,  at 
6998 


46 

least,  of  the  original  advocates  of  "  negro  suffrage,"  which  are  very  apparent 
from  the  entire  passage,  it  may  b3  pardonable  to  say  that  psrhap  j  the  pres- 
ent gravamen  with  them  is  that  the  colored  man  does  not  vote  as  they  ex- 
pected him  to  vote;  perhaps  they  may  also  see  from  the  exhibitions  referred 
to  in  Augusta,  Atlanta,  Macon,  and  in  other  places,  that  their  votes  are  much 
more  easily  controlled  by  money  than  they  supposed  they  would  be.  If  this 
be  intimidation  and  depriving  the  colored  people  of  the  inestimable  right  of 
voting,  then  it  must  be  admitted  that  it  is  carried  to  a  lamentable  extent  in 
Georgia,  if  not  in  other  States,  and  can  only  be  prevented  by  such  enforce- 
ment of  our  State  laws  as  Judge  Snead  invokes.  It  can  not  be  remedied,  as 
far  as  the  undersigned  sees,  by  any  proper  action  of  Congress. 

3.  Mr.  Blaine  says: 

"The  fourteenth  amendment  was  designed  to  prevent  this  [that  is,  the 
increased  representation  of  the  Southern  States  in  Congi-ess,  on  the  emanci- 
pation of  those  at  the  South  who  previously  owed  service  for  life],  and,  if  it 
does  not  succeed  in  preventing  it,  it  is  because  of  evasion  and  violation  of  its 
clear  provisions  and  of  its  plain  intent.  Those  who  erected  the  Confederate 
government  may  be  in  exclusive  possession  of  power  throughout  the  South; 
but  they  are  not  so  fairly  and  legally;  and  they  will  not  be  parmitted  to  con- 
tinue in  the  enjoyment  of  political  power  unjustly  seized— and  seized  in  dero- 
gation and  in  defiance  of  the  rights  not  merely  of  the  negro,  but  of  the 
whites  in  all  other  sections  of  the  country." 

What  is  really  meant  here  by  the  reference  to  the  intent  of  the  fourteenth 
amendment  and  the  enjoyment  of  "poUtical  power  unjustly  seized— seized 
in  derogation  and  defiance  of  the  rights  not  merely  of  the  negro  but  of  the 
whites,  in  all  other  sections  of  the  country,"  by  no  means  clearly  appears. 
Explanation  is  wanted. 

"When  and  where  has  any  Southern  State  unjustly  seized  any  power  or  ex- 
ercised any  which  is  not  clearly  reserved  to  it  in  the  Constitution?  The  real 
trouble  seems  to  be  this: 

After  all  the  clamor  against  the  slave  power,  so  called,  under  the  Consti- 
tution, before  the  wcr,  growing  out  of  the  three-fifths  basis  of  representa- 
tion, it  was  found  that,  on  the  adoption  of  the  thirteenth  amendment  abol- 
ishing slaveiy,  thirty-five  Representatives  were  thereby  added  to  the  South 
1:1  Congress;  and  that,  so  far  from  the  three-fifths  feature  of  the  Constitu- 
tion being  an  augmentation  of  the  political  power  of  the  South,  it  was  actu- 
ally a  diminution  of  that  power  to  the  extent  of  two-fifths  of  their  colored 
population.  It  was  then  that  an  attempt  was  made,  by  the  fourteenth 
amendment,  to  deprive  the  Southern  States  of  this  increase  of  political  power, 
which  they  by  no  means  seized  or  attempted  to  seize,  but  which  came  to 
them  rightfully  under  the  Constitution.  This  attempt,  as  has  been  stated, 
failed  of  its  object  by  the  Southern  States  putting  suffrage  upon  an  equal 
footing  between  the  blacks  and  whites. 

Mr.  Blaine  says  that  the  clear  intent  and  express  provisions  of  the  four- 
teenth  amendment  have  been  evaded  and  violated  by  the  Southern  States. 

Where  is  the  prcof  to  sustain  this  assertion?  Is  not  the  constitutional 
right  of  voting  secured  as  amply  to  the  colored  people  in  the  Southern  States 
as  in  the  Northern?  If  not,  let  proofs  to  the  contrary  be  adduced.  The 
question  is  not  as  to  the  wisdom  of  such  policy,  but  as  to  the  existence  of  the 
fact. 

The  public  mind  seems  to  be  somewhat  in  a  cloud  upon  this  subject  of 
representation,  and  the  grounds  upon  which  the  colored  population  were 
rated  in  the  Federal  basis,  as  five  blacks  to  three  whites,  or  what  is  known  as 
the  ''three-fifths  basis." 

Before  the  war  the  idea  seemed  to  be  industriously  inculcated  in  certain 
sections  of  the  country  that  it  was  a  grant  to  the  South  of  property  repre- 
sentation in  their  slaves.  No  greater  error  ever  existed  in  the  popular  mind. 
This  three-fifths  principle  was  first  agreed  on  in  Congress  under  the  old  At- 


47 

tides  of  Union  of  the  States,  known  as  the  first  Constitution,  in  1783.  The 
history  of  it  is  this:  There  was  not  any  power  under  the  Constitution  as  it 
then  existed  to  collect  taxes  by  impost  or  by  any  direct  means,  and  the  quota 
of  each  of  the  States  was  apportioned  first  upon  land  valuation  in  the  respec- 
tive States.  This  was  found  to  work  unjustly,  and  it  was  afterwards  deter- 
mined that  the  best  basis  of  taxation  was  popu-ation.  But  it  was  insisted 
that  the  black  population  was  not  so  efficient  in  the  production  of  wealth, 
which  should  be  the  criterion  in  taxation,  as  the  whites,  and  it  would  be  un- 
just to  make  the  basis  of  the  quota  of  each  State  upon  its  population,  without 
considering  the  character  of  its  population.  Some  maintained  that  one  white 
man's  labor  was  more  productive  than  that  of  four  blacks,  some  three,  some 
two.  It  was  eventually  agreed,  on  the  motion  of  Mr.  Madison,  that  three- 
fifths  should  be  the  ratio,  thus  cutting  off  two-fifths  of  the  black  population. 
This  feature,  thiis  originating  in  the  Congi-e.ss  under  the  old  Constitution, 
was  incorpoi-ated  into  the  new  one,  formed  in  1787.  It  was  then  thought  that 
the  revenue  wo\\ld  coutiuiie  to  be  chiefly  derived  from  direct  taxation,  as  it 
had  been  under  the  old  organization.  This  feature  was  thus  retained  at  that 
time  upon  the  principle  that  taxation  and  representation  should  go  together 
Very  soon,  however,  the  revenues  were  chiefiy  raised  from  imposts,  and 
hence  the  Soxithern  States,  for  all  practical  purposes,  lost  that  power  in  leg- 
islation to  which  they  would  have  been  justly  entitled  upon  the  jn-inciple  of 
representation  in  accordance  with  population. 

After  emancipation,  in  1863,  the  two-fifths  restriction  ceased  to  exist,  as  a 
necessary  result.  The  entire  iwpulation  of  the  Southern  States  then  entered 
into  the  count  for  apportionment,  as  well  as  the  entire  popiilation  of  the 
North.  The  Southern  State?  therefore  came  into  the  enjoyment  of  this  in- 
creased political  power  not  by  seizure,  but  by  constitutional  right,  and  they 
can  not  be  deprived  of  it  except  by  a  wrong  not  less  atrocious  than  the  most 
wanton  and  illegal  seizure  could  be. 

4.  Mr.  Blaine  seems  to  maintain  that  it  was  the  main  object  of  the  fifteenth 
amendment  to  secure  the  right  of  suffrage  to  the  colored  race. 

To  a  great  extent  this  may  be  gi'anted  as  true,  and  yet  not  to  the  extent 
which  he  would  seem  to  argue.  That  amendment  conferred  no  right  of  any 
kind.  It  was  only  intended  to  restrain  the  States  and  the  United  States 
from  denying  or  abridging  the  right  of  suffrage  on  account  of  "race,  color, 
or  previous  condition  of  servitude."  The  words  are:  "The  rights  of  citizens 
of  the  United  States  to  vote  shall  not  be  denied  or  abridged  by  the  United 
States,  or  by  any  State,  on  account  of  i-acs,  color,  or  previous  condition  of 
servitude."  This  is  but  an  additional  covenant  between  the  States,  imposing 
restraints  and  obligations  upon  them.selves,  and  of  course  takes  its  place 
alongside  other  similar  constitutional  provisions  re.3training  the  power  of 
the  States.  No  State,  under  this  provision  of  the  Constitution,  can  make  any 
discrimination  as  to  the  right  of  suffrage  within  its  limits  "on  account  of 
race,  color,  or  previous  condition  of  servitude,"  nor  has  any  State,  South  or 
North,  within  the  knowledge  of  the  undersigned,  made  any  such  discrimi- 
nation. 

If  there  have  been  violations  of  the  right  of  suffrage  on  the  part  of  indi- 
viduals by  intimidation,  force,  violence,  or  bribery  (which  is  by  no  means 
denied),  the  remedy  under  the  Constitution  is  a  plain  one,  and  the  under- 
signed believes  that  the  remedy  through  the  courts  would  be  as  strongly  en- 
forced in  the  South  as  in  the  North.  In  elections  to  Congress  each  House  is 
the  sole  judge  of  the  election  and  returns  of  its  own  members. 

If  a  State  were  to  pas.s  a  law  making  a  discrimination,  the  State  courts,  as 
well  as  the  Federal  courts,  would  of -cour.se  hold  such  a  law  to  be  unconstitu- 
tional. This  prohibition  against  discrimination  by  any  State  in  the  )natt<'r 
of  suffrage  is  analogous  to  the  prohibitions  against  any  State  passing  ox  post 
facto  laws  or  laws  impairing  the  obligation  of  contracts,  etc. 

The  remedy  in  all  such  cases  is  through  the  courts.    The  position  of  Mr 
5998 


48 

Blaine,  that  Congress,  under  its  power  of  "appropriate  legislation"  to  carry 
out  all  the  provisions  of  the  Constitution,  can  take  jurisdiction  of  this  claixse 
of  the  Constitution  in  any  way  different  from  what  is  proper  in  the  other 
prohibitions  against  the  States,  can  not  be  successfully  maintained.  The 
true  remedy  for  all  these  evils,  wherever  they  exist,  North  or  South,  is  in 
the  courts,  under  such  laws  as  Congress  may  find  it  necessary  to  pass  for  the 
protection  of  rights,  within  its  limited  jurisdiction  and  specified  powers. 

Alexander  H.  Stephens. 

Mr.  Phillips:  Negro  suffrage  has  not  been  a  failure.  Only  the  merest 
surface  j  udgment  would  so  consider  it.  Though  his  voting  has  been  crippled 
and  curtailed  throughout  a  large  part  of  the  South  during  half  the  time  he 
has  been  entitled  to  vote,  the  negro  has  given  the  best  evidence  of  his  fitness 
for  suffrage  by  valuing  it  at  its  full  worth.  Every  investigation  of  southern 
fraud  has  shown  him  less  purchasable  than  the  white  man.  He  has  wielded 
his  vote  with  as  much  honor  and  honesty— to  claim  the  very  least — as  any 
class  of  southern  whites;  even  of  those  intellectually  his  superiors.  For  nine 
fearful  years  he  has  clung  to  the  Republican  party  (which  at  least  promised 
to  protect  him)  as  no  white  class,  North  or  South,  would  have  done.  Want 
and  starvation  he  has  manfully  defied,  and  asserted  his  rights  till  shot  down 
in  their  very  exercise.  Where  to-day  is  the  northern  white  class  that  would 
have  clung  to  a  party  or  principle  in  such  peril  or  at  such  sacrifice?  If  any 
man  knows  of  such,  let  hiwi  testify.  I  have  known  northern  politics  reason- 
ably well  for  forty  years,  and  my  experience  has  shown  me  no  such  northern 
politicians. 

In  lawmaking  the  negro  has  nothing  to  fear  when  compared  with  the 
whites.  Taking  away  the  laws  which  white  cunning  and  hate  have  foisted 
into  the  statute  book,  the  legislation  of  the  South  since  the  rebellion  may 
challenge  comparison  with  that  of  any  previous  period.  This  is  aU  due  to 
the  negro.  The  educated  white  Southerner  skulked  his  responsibility.  Either 
the  negro  himself  devised  those  laws,  or  he  was  wise  enough  to  seek  and  take 
the  good  advice  of  his  friends.  When  some  one  told  Sully  that  Elizabeth  was 
not  able,  but  only  chose  able  advisers,  ''Is  not  that  proof  of  the  greatest  wis- 
dom," said  the  sagacious  minister  of  Henry  IV.  They  say  negro  legislatures 
doubled  the  taxes.  Well,  there  were  double  the  number  of  children  to  be 
educated  and  double  the  number  of  men  (one-half  of  them  previously  things) 
to  be  governed  and  cared  for. 

The  South  owes  to  negro  labor  and  to  legislation  under  negro  rule  all  the 
prosperity  she  now  enjoy.s— prosperity  secured  in  spite  of  white  ignorance 
and  hate.  The  negro  is  to-day  less  ignorant,  superstitious,  and  helpless  than 
the  same  class  of  southern  white  men;  yes,  than  a  class  of  whites  supposed 
to  be  immeasurably  his  superiors. 

The  South  would  not  have  disfranchised  the  negro  if  his  stiff  rage  had  been 
a  failure.  Its  success  is  what  she  fears  and  hates.  When  lawless  and  violent 
men  attack  any  element  of  law  and  civilization,  and  can  only  succ  eed  by  de- 
stroying it,  does  not  that  very  assault  prove  the  value  and  efl[iciency  of  that 
obstacle  to  their  lawless  ptirpose? 

Negro  suffrage  gave  the  helm  to  the  Republican  party  when  it  represented 
a  principle— that  was  intelligent.  It  stood  firmer  against  bribery  than  other 
Southerners — that  was  honest.  It  vindicated  the  negro's  fitness  for  legisla- 
tion— that  scattered  the  fogs  about  negro  inferiority.  It  educated  the  negro 
more  and  more  every  day,  and  was  fast  bringing  him  to  a  level  with  the 
whites  of  the  best  class— that  was  death^to  southern  dreams  of  future  rule 
and  treason. 

In  those  States  where  either  circumstances  or  the  nation  have  secured  the 
negro  anything  like  fair  play,  his  suffrage  has  been  a  marked  success. 

If  negro  suffrage  has  been  in  any  particular  or  respect  a  failure,  it  has  not 
been  the  negro's  fault,  nor  in  consequence  of  any  want  or  lack  in  him.  If  it 
5998 


49 

has  failed  to  secure  all  the  good  it  might  have  produced,  this  has  been  because 
of  cowardice,  selfishness,  and  want  of  statesmanship  on  the  part  of  the  Gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States.  While  squabbling  over  the  loaves  and  fishes 
of  office,  we  have  allowed  our  only  friends  and  aUies  to  face  the  fearful  dan- 
gers of  their  situation— into  which  we  called  them  in  order  to  save  the  Union — 
without  the  protection  of  public  opinion,  or  of  the  arm  of  the  Gove:  ument 
itself.  We  have  believed  every  lie  against  them;  fraternized  with  unrepent- 
ant rebels:  and  on  the  Senate  floor  clasped  hands  dripping  with  the  negro's 
blood — blood  shed  because,  without  sympathy  or  siipport  from  us,  the  negro 
wielded  his  vote  so  bravely  and  intelligently  as  to  make  the  enemies  of  the 
Union  tremble.  Does  any  man  imagine  that  Senator  Hamburg  Butler  shoots 
negro  voters  because  he  fears  they  will  not  rule  South  Carolina  intelligently? 

Negro  suffrage  has  not,  therefore,  been  a  failure,  even  in  any  trivial  de 
gree,  from  any  lack  of  courage,  intelligence,  or  honesty  on  his  part.  And  let 
it  be  remembered  how  early  the  Ku-klux  assaulted  him;  how  incessant  have 
been  the  attacks  upon  him  all  these  years;  how  brave  and  unquailing  has 
been  his  resistance.  Let  it  be  kept  in  mind  also  that,  meanwhile,  one-half 
of  the  journals  of  these  forty  States  have  been  against  him,  and  seventh-tenths 
of  the  Federal  officers  and  the  whole  organized  power  of  the  white  South. 
All  this  while  the  negro  has  accumulated  property,  risen  in  position,  advanced 
marvelously  in  education,  outrunning  the  white  man  in  this  race.  He  has 
proved  himself  equal  to  any  post  he  has  gained.  On  the  floor  of  Congress  the 
southern  white  has  more  than  once  quailed  before  negro  logic,  sarcasm,  and 
power  of  retort.  Nothing  has  checked  his  progress  or  put  him  down  but  a 
hundred  lawless  armed  men  as.sailing  at  midnight  single  men  unarmed  and  at 
disadvantage.  And  let  it  be  also  kept  in  mind  that  this  same  lawlessness  has 
shut  up  courts,  silenced  white  Republicans,  scattered  their  conventions,  sujv 
pressed  jom-nals,  and  driven  mei-chants  from  southern  cities;  so  that  yield- 
ing to  it  argues  no  cowardice  in  the  negi'o,  since  the  white  of  every  profes- 
sion, class,  and  grade  shares  in  the  same  humiliation. 

Does  any  man  advise  the  disfranchisement  of  the  white  Republican  be- 
cause his  voting  is  (to  quote  Mr.  Blaine's  picture)  "a  challenge  to  the  Demo- 
crats in  which  he  is  sure  to  be  overmatched,  ai:d  his  disfranchisement  would 
remove  all  conflict  and  restore  kindly  relations  between  the  two  political 
parties!" 

These  considerations  show  the  negro's  fitness  for  the  vote,  and  therefore 
that  he  ought  to  have  been  enfranchised. 

Every  consideration  of  policy  and  statesmanship  demanded  his  enfran- 
chisement, the  negro  being  the  nation's  only  ally  in  an  enemy's  country. 
Everything,  therefore,  that  helps  him  strengthens  the  Union.  Equality  of 
condition  breeds  self-respect.  Responsibility  is  God"s  method  of  educating 
men,  making  them  sagacious,  prudent,  calm,  and  brave.  Power  insures  con- 
sideration to  its  possessor.  When  a  vote  in  the  House  of  Commons  added 
half  a  million  to  the  number  of  British  voters.  Lord  John  Russell  sprang  to 
his  feet  and  exclaimed,  "Now  the  first  anxiety  of  every  Englishman  is  to 
educate  the  masses!"  It  was  their  having  the  vote,  and  so  endangering  the 
State,  which  awakened  that  anxiety. 

Then,  again,  while  the  negro  remained  without  the  suffrage  it  was  a  log- 
ical inconsistency  under  our  Constitution.  The  popular  mind  frets  at  any 
such  inconsistency.  It  was  such  intellectual  and  moral  fretting  against  a 
logical  inconsistency— slavery— that  provoked  the  antislavery  movement  and 
gave  it  strength.  To  have  prolonged  such  a  state  of  things  after  the  war 
ended  would  have  been  sure  to  have  stirred  angry  debate.  It  was  therefore 
wise  and  necessary  to  avoid  this  danger.  Finally,  the  exercise  of  suffrage  is 
the  only  sufficient  preparation  for  it.  You  might  as  well  postpone  going  Into 
water  until  one  has  learned  to  swim  as  to  put  off  granting  suffrage  until  all 
the  world  agrees  that  a  man  is  fit  for  it. 

When  the  North,  therefore,  gave  the  negro  the  vote  it  did  all  liiwcoulddoto 

£998 4 


50 

close  the  war  between  the  two  civilizations,  the  barbarism  of  the  South  and 
the  industrial  and  equal  civil  polity  of  the  North  Of  course  this  was  the 
highest  wisdom  as  well  as  simple  justice. 

After  the  negro  has  used  his  vote  as  honestly  and  intelligently  as  the  aver- 
age Northerner,  and  more  bravely,  shall  we  withdraw  it  because  the  caste 
prejudice,  that  hates  him  and  dreads  it,  lives  "  unharmoniously  "  in  its  sight? 
And  surely  it  would  be  absurd  and  a  foul  disgrace  to  take  it  from  him  for 
the  single  reason  that  this  present  Administration  of  our  Government  can 
not  protect  him  in  its  exercise:  "Would  you  break  up  a  good  locomotive 
merely  because  one  raw  and  blundering  engineer  proved  himself  incapable 
of  running  it? 

Every  man  sees  now  what  a  few  men  saw  ten  years  ago  (and  I  am  glad  I  was 
one  of  those  few,  ridiculed  as  we  then  were),  that  to  enfranchise  the  negro, 
without  doing  all  the  nation  could  to  insure  his  independence,  was  a  wrong 
to  him  and  disastrous  to  us. 

Treason  should  have  been  punished  by  confiscating  its  landed  property. 
We  aU  see  now  that  magnanimity  went  as  far  as  it  safely  could  when  it 
granted  the  traitor  his  life.  His  land  should  have  been  taken  from  him;  and, 
before  Andrew  Johnson's  treachery,  every  traitor  would  have  been  only  too 
glad  to  have  been  let  off  so  easily;  that  land  should  have  been  divided  among 
the  negroes,  forty  acres  to  each  family,  and  tools— poor  pay  for  the  unpaid  toil 
of  six  generations  on  that  very  soil.  Mere  emancipation  without  any  com- 
pensation to  the  victim  was  pitiful  atonement  for  ages  of  wrong.  Planted  on 
his  own  land,  sure  of  bread— instead  of  being  merely  a  wage-slave — the  negrro's 
suffrage  would  have  been  a  very  different  experiment. 

Then,  again,  those  States  should  have  been  held  as  Territories  (which United 
States  authority  could  enter  and  rule  directly,  and  without  troublesome 
questions)  until  a  different  mood  of  mind  among  the  whites,  and  the  immi- 
gration of  northern  men,  wealth,  and  ideas  made  it  safe  to  trust  that  section 
with  State  governments.  In  his  last  years  the  late  Vice-President,  Henry 
Wilson,  confessed  to  me  that  this  was  the  great  mistake  in  that  national  set- 
tlement. His  only  excuse  was  that  the  Republican  party  did  not  dare  to  risk 
any  other  course  in  the  face  of  Democratic  opposition,  which  only  means  that 
the  nation  was  not  ready  for  the  statesmanship  the  time  demanded.  But 
this  surely  was  not  the  negro's  fault,  and  he  should  neither  be  blamed  nor 
visited  with  disfranchisement  because  we  were  unready,  cowardly,  and  in- 
comjsetent. 

But  there  is  no  need  even  now  of  bating  one  jot  of  hope.  The  United 
States  Government  is  amply  able  to  protect  its  own  citizens.  Put  a  man  into 
the  Executive  chair  and  there  will  be  peace  at  the  South— not  as  now,  the 
despot's  peace,  when  "order  reigns  in  Warsaw,"  but  quiet  homes,  streets 
free  from  bloodshed,  and  each  man  safe  and  unmolested  while  he  exercises 
all  a  citizen's  rights. 

Mr.  Blaine  has  made  it  clear  that  no  right  in  this  country  is  more  com- 
pletely guaranteed  than  the  negro's  right  to  vote.  It  is  hard  to  imagine  any 
eclipse  of  public  honor  so  dark  as  to  make  his  disfranchisement  possible. 
But  men  who  have  seen  the  Dred  Scott  decision  and  slave  hunts  in  northern 
cities— defended  and  welcomed  by  journals  and  pulpits— who  have  seen  Web- 
ster bow  his  majestic  fame,  and  Clay  try  to  barter  his  early  good  record  for 
infamous  success,  may  weU  hesitate  to  say  that  any  baseness  or  sycophancy 
in  a  matter  touching  the  negro  is  impossible.  The  South  will  probably 
never,  by  law,  disfranchise  the  negro  while  she  remains  in  the  Union.  But 
the  South  does  not,  practically,  disfranchise  him  now  from  petty  spite.  It  is 
a  weU-matured  plan.  She  purposes  to  rule  this  nation  or  break  it.  In  her 
present  mood  union  between  her  and  the  North  is  as  impossible  as  between 
Germany  and  Prance  or  Austria  and  Italy.  Until  northern  men,  capital, 
and  ideas  permeate  the  South  that  mood  will  perpetuate  itself. 


51 

But  right  is  stronger  than  wrong.  Barbarism  melts  and  crnmbles  before 
civilization.  The  South  can  build  no  wall  high  enoiigh,  she  can  enact  no  law 
bitter  enough,  to  bar  out  the  nineteenth  century.  Even  isolated  Cuba  has 
no  tariff  rigid  enough  to  keep  out  justice.  The  Indian,  with  right  on  his 
side,  and  so  alert  that  he  makes  it  cost  the  United  States  $1,000,000  to  kill  an 
Indian  in  war,  can  not  resist  the  wave  of  civilization.  Equally  impotent  is 
the  South.  Whether  under  our  flag  or  outside  of  it,  she  will,  in  time,  recog- 
nize the  laws  of  industrial  civilization,  ana  accept  justice  as  a  good  bargain 
long  before  she  is  virtuous  enough  to  see  its  righteousness. 

Wendell  Phillips. 

Mr.  Blair:  The  negro  ought  to  have  been  g^iven  the  franchise  if  capable 
by  nature  of  exercising  it.  If  not,  it  ought  not  to  have  been  confeiTed,  and 
ought  to  be  withdrawn.  Hence  the  two  questions  presented  are  but  one  in 
substance.  It  ought  to  surprise  no  one  that  this  question  is  likely  to  occupy 
the  public  attention  again.  The  subject  of  the  abolition  of  slavery  occupied 
the  public  mind  during  many  years,  and  was  thoroughly  discussed  before  it 
was  acted  upon;  and  no  one  now  denies  the  wisdom  of  the  decision  made  upon 
it.  But  the  question  of  negro  suffrage  was  discussed  very  little  before  the 
people  prior  to  its  decision;  and  neither  the  Congress  which  proposed  nor 
the  legislatures  which  adopted  the  amendment  were  elected  with  reference 
to  the  question.  And  this  is  equally  true  of  the  Congress  which  passed  the 
reconstruction  act,  by  which  negro  suffrage  was  imposed  upon  the  Confed- 
erate States,  and  by  which  the  adoption  of  both  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
amendments  was  seciired. 

It  is  certainly  proper  for  the  people  to  reconsider  a  measure  adopted  so  pre- 
cipitately for  the  puiT)ose  of  enabling  one  section  of  the  country  to  hold  the 
other  in  subjection,  in  violation  of  the  Constitution  and  of  the  fundamental 
principle  of  local  self-government,  and  whicn  has  never  had  the  sanction 
even  of  the  northern  people  in  any  form,  for  the  power  to  accomplish  it 
was  obtained  from  them  by  denying  that  any  such  action  was  contemplated. 

Having  been  accomplished  according  to  the  forms  of  law,  it  is  the  Consti- 
tution, and  can  only  be  revoked  by  observing  the  same  forms;  but>if  negro 
suffrage  is  pernicious  to  the  public  welfare,  degrades  suffrage,  fosters  cor- 
ruption, defeats  responsibility,  strengthens  the  money  power,  and  endan- 
gers the  liberty  of  the  race  which  established  representative  government, 
and  so  far  alone  has  shown  capacity  to  maintain  it,  that  capacity  itself  gives 
absolute  assurance  that  it  will  be  revoked. 

Nor  will  it  be  ong  before  the  subject  may  be  properly  considered.  The 
escape  of  the  Southern  States  from  the  thralldom  which  negro  suffrage  was 
devised  to  impose  upon  them  has  defeated  the  object  for  which  it  was  de- 
vised, and  its  authors  now  find  that,  instead  of  being  an  instrument  to  per- 
pettiate  their  power,  it  serves  only  to  increase  that  of  their  adversaries. 
They  still  clamor  about  outrages  upon  it;  but  this  is  only  to  arouse  the  jeal- 
ousy of  the  North  to  consolidate  it  against  the  power  they  have  strengthened 
at  the  South.  If  defeated  in  this,  the  sectional  issue  will  be  eliminated  from 
our  politics,  and  the  subject  of  negro  suffrage  will  cease  to  have  any  relation 
to  sectional  power  and  national  politics,  and  will  probably  be  allowed  to  be 
considered  upon  its  merits  by  the  communities  affected  by  it.  In  that  event, 
the  only  advocates  of  negro  suffrage  will  be  the  representatives  of  the  plant- 
ers and  other  possessors  of  wealth,  who  will  control  their  labor  and  their 
votes.  They  alone  will  have  any  political  interest  to  promote  by  maintain- 
ing it. 

Our  fathers.  North  and  South,  were  all  emancipationi.sts,  and  refused  to 
put  the  word  "slave"  in  the  Constitution,  not  wishing  a  trace  uf  it  to  aj)i)i'iir 
in  that  insti-ument;  but  not  a  man  among  them  contemplated  making  the 
negro  a  voter.    Mr.  Jefferson,  who  predicted  that  slavery  would  go  out  in 


52 

blood  unless  provision  was  made  for  emancipation,  saw  also  that  the  races 
could  not  live  together  as  equals.  "  Nothing  is  more  certainly  written  in  the 
book  of  fate,"  he  said,  "than  that  these  people  are  to  be  free;  nor  is  it  less 
certain  that  the  two  races,  equally  free,  can  not  live  in  the  same  government. 
Nature,  habit,  opinion,  have  drawn  indelible  lines  of  distinction  between 
them.  It  is  still  in  our  power  to  direct  the  process  of  emancipation  and  de- 
portation, and  in  such  slow  degree  as  that  the  evil  will  wear  oft  insensibly, 
and  their  places  be  filled  up,  pari  passu,  by  free  white  laborers.  If,  on  the 
contrary,  it  is  left  to  torce  itself  on,  human  nature  must  shudder  at  the  pros- 
pect held  up.''  Prior  to  the  war,  Jefferson  was  the  recognized  exponent  of 
the  true  principles  of  our  Government,  in  theory  and  practice.  He  had  ex- 
tinguished the  opposing  party,  and  every  succeeding  Administration  pro- 
fessed to  be  guided  by  his  principles.  And  his  counsel  would  have  been  fol- 
lowed with  respect  to  slavery,  as  it  had  been  upon  other  important  subjects, 
but  that  a  new  prophet  arose  in  the  South,  who,  by  firing  the  hearts  of  its 
politicians  with  a  fatal  ambition  in  connection  with  it,  so  changed  the  morale 
of  Jefferson's  party  as  to  make  slavery  its  most  powerful  element,  and  his 
teachings  on  the  subject  to  be  pronounced  "  folly  and  delusion,"  and  slavery, 
instead  of  being  "  a  moral  and  political  evil,"  as  he  had  taught,  and  as  hitherto 
universally  held  at  the  South,  became  "the  most  safe  and  stable  basis  for 
free  government  in  the  world."    We  know  the  result. 

Is  there  any  better  reason  for  accepting  the  new  revelation  declaring  it 
to  be  "folly  and  delusion"  to  say  that  nature  has  drawn  such  indelible 
lines  of  distinction  between  the  black  and  white  races  that  they  can  not  Live 
as  equals  in  the  same  government,  if  that  government  is  to  be  a  free  govern- 
ment? It  was  inspired  by  the  lust  of  sectional  power,  and  relies  for  success 
upon  the  triumph  of  military  over  civil  institutions.  It  was  established  by 
the  sword,  in  violation  of  the  Constitution.  More  than  half  the  white  people 
were  disfranchised,  and  all  their  leading  men  and  the  blacks,  numbering 
4,000,000,  were  given  more  votes  than  the  whites,  numbering  about  8,000,000— 
the  official  returns  ol  registration  in  nine  ot  the  States  giving  the  blacks 
631,746  votes  and  the  whites  585,769.  General  Grant,  under  whose  direction 
the  work  was  done,  reported  that  the  combined  negro  vote  was  indispen- 
sable; that  the  negroes  were  incapable  of  making  that  combination  of  them- 
selves, and  that  the  whites  sent  there  from  the  North  to  direct  that  combi- 
nation could  not  remain  there  for  that  purpose  unless  supported  by  the  Army. 
The  military  became  the  governing  power.  The  part  of  the  neg:ro  was  that 
of  "dummy"  in  the  game.  They  were  beaten  at  all  points  without  regard 
to  numbers,  except  where  the  military  and  United  States  deputy  marshals 
took  charge  and  voted  them.  Negro  sufifragj  has,  in  fact,  never  existed.  It 
has  been  only  an  expensive  process  of  registering  and  supervision  by  the 
military  to  have  pieces  ot  paper  put  in  their  hands  and  deposited  as  directed 
by  the  white  men  sent  down  to  combine  and  lead  them. 

These  were,  necessarily,  persons  of  the  worst  class;  and  the  result  was  the 
most  disgraceful  chapter  in  our  history.  The  votes  of  the  blacks,  which 
made  the  Republican  candidate  President,  installed  these  harpies  in  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  States;  they  loaded  the  States  with  $300,000,00(J  of  debt,  while 
exacting  the  most  exorbitant  taxes  from  the  impoverished  people,  and  gave 
entire  immunity  to  crime.  The  demoralization  thus  infused  into  our  system 
infected  the  Federal  Government.  The  enormous  expenditure  during 
Grant's  two  terms — being,  exclusive  of  all  payments  growing  out  of  the  war, 
greater  than  the  expenditure  from  1789  to  1861,  including  that  on  account  of 
the  war  of  1812,  the  Algerine  war,  the  Mexican  war,  all  our  Indian  wars,  and 
the  purchase  money  of  Louisiana  and  Florida — is  traceable  to  the  irrespon- 
sible government  thus  established.  And  so  is  the  corruption  which  has  per- 
vaded the  Government,  not  yet  fully  exposed,  but  which  the  whisky  ring. 


53 

tbe  Indian  ring,  and  the  multitude  of  sinailar  blotches  accidentally  brought 
to  the  surface  show  to  have  permeated  all  Departments. 

The  British  Government  learned  from  the  Amei-ican  Revolution  what,  in 
their  eagerness  for  power,  our  Republican  politicians  lost  sight  of— that  it 
was  "  neither  possible  nor  desirable  "to  govern  the  English-speaking  race 
against  their  will.  And  hence,  instead  of  suppressing  representative  govern- 
ment in  Canada  after  the  rebellion,  as  our  rulers  did  in  the  South,  Earl  Grey, 
In  hi'i  instructions  to  Lord  Elgin,  the  Governor-General,  said  that  "it  could 
not  be  too  distinctly  understood  that  it  is  neither  possible  nor  desirable  to 
carry  on  the  government  of  any  of  the  British  provinces  in  North  America 
in  opposition  to  the  opinion  of  its  inhabitants."  To  shame  the  great  Repub- 
lic and  to  foment  discord  in  it,  the  blacks  in  Jamaica  were  also  enfranchised 
to  elect  a  Parliament,  while  aU  the  workingmen  in  England  were  denied  that 
privilege;  but  the  incapacity  of  the  negro  for  that  function  was  so  fully  dem- 
onstrated that  it  had  to  be  withdrawn.  This  fact  ought  to  silence  those 
among  us  who,  for  mere  party  objects,  have  lately  echoed  the  ruUng  class  in 
England  in  attributing  the  universal  repugnance  of  our  people.  North  and 
South,  before  the  war,  to  mere  pride  of  race.  Having  tried  the  experiment 
themselves  where  there  was  no  race  conflict,  and  found  it  a  lamentable  fail- 
ure, they  have  themselves  vindicated  the  wisdom  of  our  fathers  and  the  good 
sense  of  our  people. 

Many  honest  and  true  men  have  been  persuaded  that  it  was  necessary  to 
give  the  ballot  to  the  negro  to  secure  him  his  freedom.  They  assumed  that 
he  could  acquh'e  the  knowledge  and  character  which  qualified  him  to  use  it. 
Knowledge  sufficient  he  might  acquire,  but  not  the  independence  and  the 
self-reliance.  It  was  for  want  of  these  qualities  that  he  was  for  centuries  an 
nereditary  bondman  in  America,  and  did  not  himself  strike  the  blow  which 
made  him  free.  Indeed,  all  the  acts  passed  to  make  him  a  voter,  from  the 
reconstruction  to  the  enforcement  act.  and  all  the  speeches  of  their  advo- 
cates, recognize  his  want  of  every  essential  quality  of  a  voter  by  treating  him 
as  not  fit  to  be  the  master,  but  only  to  be  the  ward  of  the  Government.  On 
this  theory  the  Freedman's  Bureau  was  established  to  remove  him  from  the 
influence  of  the  white  race,  General  Grant  empowered  to  sustain  the  men 
sent  to  mass  them  against  the  white  people,  and  for  this  reason  it  is  assumed 
that  the  Repubhcans  can  not  be  legally  beaten  where  the  negroes  are  in  the 
majority.  The  Republicans  knew  that  the  race  which  takes  so  largely  the 
direction  of  public  affairs  of  this  continent  would  control  the  negro  unless  the 
Government  interposed  to  prevent  it.  And  the  recovery  of  political  power 
in  all  the  Southern  States,  in  spite  of  this  interposition,  shows  that  he  is  more 
feeble  than  he  was  accounted. 

And  the  fact  that  Wade  Hampton  had  5,000  blacks,  uniformed  with  red 
shirts,  marching  in  procession  during  his  canvass  for  governor  in  1876,  re- 
ceived all  the  votes  for  that  office  in  1878,  and  all  but  two  for  Senator  in  1879, 
will  satisfy  any  mind  open  to  the  truth  that  this  is  not  due  to  intimidation. 

Hampton  is  the  type  of  a  class  to  whom  the  nej^ro  naturally  gives  fealty; 
and  enfranchisement  will,  for  a  time  at  least,  be  a  grant  of  vast  politica 
power  to  them  when  the  northern  politicians  shall  discontinue  the  attempt 
to  use  him  as  the  instrument  of  their  power,  and  make  it  possible  for  the 
local  politicians  to  avail  themselves  of  his  aid.  Hampton,  the  boldest  of  this 
class,  long  ago  avowed  his  pleasure  at  the  grant,  and  has  availed  himself 
of  it.    Others  will  soon  foUow  his  example. 

As  it  is  manifest  that,  as  followers  of  this  class,  the  negro  can  bo  better 
protected  than  as  the  instrument  of  northern  dominion  over  the  people  of 
the  South,  it  ought  to  be  the  policy  of  all  who  have  any  true  feeling  for  him 
to  discountenance  the  new  crusade  which  the  northern  politicians  nro  pre- 
paring to  preach  in  1880.  But  while  under  the  guidance  of  a  class  of  leaders 
who  are  responsible  to  pubhc  opinion,  they  could  be  trained,  if  it  were  possl- 
5998 


54 

ble  to  train  them  at  all,  to  the  exercise  of  government,  no  such  result  can  be 
expected.  It  would  be  as  reasonable  to  expect  them  to  develop  -wings  by 
training.  The  negro  is  not  of  a  self-govei-ning  nature.  He  is  of  the  Tropics, 
where,  as  Montesquieu  observes,  despotism  has  prevailed  in  all  ages.  His 
nature,  of  which  this  form  of  government  is  the  outgrowth,  is  not  changed 
by  transplanting,  more  than  that  of  the  orange  or  the  banana.  Hence,  to  in- 
corporate him  in  our  system  is  to  subvert  it.  His  nominal  enfranchisement 
is  but  a  mode  of  disfranchising  the  white  man,  and  makes  them  equals  in- 
deed, but  only  as  the  subjects  of  irresponsible  power.  For  this  reason  Mr. 
Jefferson  believed  it  would  not  be  submitted  to.  "We  have  seen  that  he  un- 
derstood the  American  people  better  than  Mr.  Calhoun.  It  remains  to  be 
seen  whether  he  knew  them  better  than  Mr.  Thaddeus  Stevens. 

Montgomery  Blair. 

Mr.  Hendricks:  The  editor  of  the  North  American  Review  has  asked  me 
to  express  some  views  upon  Mr.  Blaine"s  article  on  the  questions,  "  Ought  the 
negro  to  be  disf i-anchised?  Ought  he  to  have  been  enfranchised?"  and  also 
my  views  upon  the  questions  themselves.  It  is  almost  impossible  for  me  to 
comply  with  this  request.  I  am  in  Washington  for  a  few  days  only,  and  my 
engagements  will  not  allow  me  to  attempt  a  review  of  Mr.  Blaine's  article. 
Upon  the  two  questions  I  can  only  express  my  opinions,  without  much  argu- 
ment or  illustration. 

It  is  not  yet  ten  years  since  the  right  to  vote  was  conferred  upon  the  negro 
by  constitutional  provision.  That  period  is  too  short  to  allow  such  test  of  the 
wisdom  of  the  measure  as  would  justify  its  abrogation.  The  constitutional 
amendment  is  supposed  to  have  been  the  deliberate  and  well-considered  act 
of  the  people.  It  must  not  be  regarded  as  an  ordinary  legislative  measure, 
to  be  repealed  or  modified  "  for  light  and  transient  causes."  To  make  such 
a  change  of  the  Constitution  because  an  election  in  one  section  of  the  country 
has  not  resulted  as  some  might  have  desired  or  expected  is  to  treat  the  most 
solemn  act  of  the  people  with  contempt,  and  to  weaken  the  force  and  impair 
the  authority  of  the  Constitution  itself.  Opposition  to  negro  enfranchise- 
ment ten  years  ago  does  not  now  require  an  effort  to  strike  the  fifteenth 
amendment  from  the  Constitution.  Any  provision  of  the  Constitution  should 
be  regarded  as  fixed  and  permanent,  and  not  to  be  disturbed  except  upon 
the  test  of  such  experience  as  would  justify  a  change  of  Government  itself 
because  of  great  and  permanent  evils.  It  was  not  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
the  two  races  would  at  once  and  without  discord  adjust  themselves  to  the 
new  relations  pi'escribed  and  fixed  by  the  constitutional  amendments.  In 
the  establishment  of  civil  and  political  changes  so  radical  and  extended,  strife 
and  discord  for  a  time  were  inevitable. 

The  experiment  by  which  the  negro  is  now  being  judged  has  not  been  a 
fair  one.  When  enfranchised,  he  was  made  to  feel  that  he  owed  servitude  to 
a  party;  through  the  agency  of  United  States  officials  and  of  the  Freedmen's 
Bureau,  and  by  means  of  secret  leagues,  the  entire  negro  vote  was  consoli- 
dated into  a  party  inspired  by  a  distrust  of,  if  not  hostility  to,  the  white  race. 
The  color  line  was  distinctly  drawn.  They  were  taught  to  distrust  every 
suggestion  made  by  their  former  masters  for  their  political  welfare,  and  to 
give  their  utmost  confidence  and  support  to  a  class  of  men  who  most  un- 
scrupulously used  the  power  so  acquired  to  promote  their  own  selfish  ends. 
The  result  was  the  introduction  in  many  Southern  States  of  the  most  objec- 
tionable practices.  Bribery  and  corruption  fastened  themselves  upon  the 
public  service.  The  Staie  governments  became  the  worst  possible.  The 
increase  of  State  indebtedness  was  frightful.  Taxation  threatened  to  swallow 
up  not  only  the  earnings,  but  also  the  accumulations  of  the  people.  Men 
contemplated  approaching  ruin  with  horror.  Judged  by  these  results,  negi'O 
enfranchisement  was  worse  than  a  failure,  it  was  a  gigantic  evU. 

In  that  condition  of  the  country  excesses  and  abuses  did  unquestionably 
occur.    No  foresight,  no  patience,  no  policy  could  have  averted  them.    Tho 


55 

fierceness  of  the  struggle  for  better  government  was  necessarily  proportioned 
to  the  enormities  that  were  practiced  upon  the  people.  The  efforts  of  the 
people  to  promote  their  own  welfare  soon  passed  from  personal  conflict  and 
neighborhood  struggle  to  the  adoption  of  measures  and  policies  of  safety  and 
reform.  The  colored  people  were  appealed  to.  They  were  told  that  their 
own  welfare,  as  well  as  that  of  the  white  race,  required  economy  and  reform; 
that  the  value  of  the  products  of  their  labor  depended  upon  measures  that 
would  reduce  taxation.  These  appeals  were  heard  and  heeded.  In  great 
numbers,  by  their  influence  and  their  votes,  they  contributed  to  the  changes 
in  men  and  measures  that  experience  has  shown  were  essential  to  the  welfare 
of  all  classes,  especially  of  producers. 

Perhaps  in  this  connection  it  is  proper  to  refer  to  the  State  of  South  Caro- 
lina as  an  illustration.  Next  to  that  of  Louisiana,  her  government  was  the 
worst  and  the  condition  of  her  people  the  most  intolerable.  Her  present  able 
chief  executive,  in  his  canvass  for  the  office,  addressed  the  colored  voters  in 
the  language  of  argument  and  of  patriotic  appeal.  He  and  his  cause  proved 
stronger  than  pai'ty  control.  They  came  to  his  support.  They  contributed  , 
to  his  election.  Without  their  help,  no  change  could  have  occurred.  The  re- 
form that  followed  was  complete.  The  men  who  had  ruled  and  ruined  the 
State,  and  who  had  oppressed  all  her  industries,  met  their  just  punishment 
in  prison  or  sought  safety  in  flight.  Honesty  took  the  place  of  fraud,  and 
economy  displaced  profligate  expenditure. 

Judged  by  such  results,  negro  enfranchisement  is  not  altogether  a  failure. 
The  results  in  Georgia  are  equally  instructive.  The  evil  influences  that  con- 
trolled the  negro  vote  in  other  localities  were  never  so  strong  in  that  State, 
and  at  an  earlier  day  legitimate  and  good  authority  prevailed.  A  beautiful 
illustration  of  the  harmony  that  has  come  to  exist  between  the  races  oc- 
curred in  one  of  the  cities  of  that  State  but  a  week  since.  The  hegro  vote 
had  contributed  to  the  election  of  an  able  Representative  in  Congress.  Ho 
died,  and.  when  his  remains  were  taken  home  for  interment,  they  who  had 
helped  to  elect  helped  also  to  bury  him.  They  appeared  in  the  funeral  pro- 
cession in  organized  companies  of  the  militia,  in  full  uniform,  and  carrying  the 
arms  of  the  State.  At  the  polls  and  at  the  grave  the  races  united  in  the  ex- 
pression of  confldence  and  in  tributes  of  respect  toward  one  whose  family 
was  connected  with  the  history  of  the  State.  It  is  a  pleasing  reflection  that 
when  thus  restored  to  its  proper  condition  society  lias  become  relieved,  in  a 
great  degree,  of  the  strife  and  bloodshed  that  attended  the  government  of 
the  people  of  the  States  by  outside  power. 

It  is  but  recently  that  we  have  heard  the  demand  for  the  withdrawal  of 
the  right  to  vote  from  the  negro,  and  for  a  reduction  of  the  representation 
allowed  to  the  Southern  States.  The  demand  comes  only  from  those  who  re- 
lied upon  then*  power  to  control  him  as  a  political  machine.  It  can  not  be 
said  that  his  late  independent  action  in  harmony  with  that  of  the  white  peo- 
ple is  wrong.  Beyond  dispute  it  was  well  for  all  the  people  of  South  Caro- 
lina, both  white  and  black,  and  for  the  people  of  the  whole  country,  that 
Governor  Hampton  was  successful,  and  that  the  corrupt  power  was  over- 
thrown. Peace  is  assured.  Labor  is  secure  and  encouraged.  Calmly,  quietly, 
and  intelligently  a  large  body  of  the  negi-oes  have  joined  the  whites  to  correct 
intolerable  evils.  This  was  fully  and  well  stated  by  a  late  colored  United 
States  Senator  from  Mississippi,  in  a  letter  written  to  the  President  shortly 
after  the  bad  government  had  been  overthrown  in  that  State.  The  "Solid 
South"  is  ihe  result  of  the  union  and  harmony  of  the  races,  and  of  their 
united  effort  for  economy  and  reform. 

I  am  not  able  to  see  why  the  .subject  of  negro  suffrage  should  be  discussed. 
It  must  be  known  to  all  that  the  late  amendments  will  not  be,  can  not  be,  re- 
pealed. There  is  but  the  duty  upon  all  to  make  the  political  power  now  held 
by  the  enfranchised  race  the  cause  of  the  least  evil,  and  of  the  greatest  possi- 
ble good,  to  the  country.  The  negro  is  now  free,  and  is  the  equal  of  the 
5998 


56 

white  man  in  respect  to  his  civil  and  political  rights.  He  must  now  make  hla 
own  contest  for  position  and  power.  By  his  own  conduct  and  success  he  will 
be  judged.  It  will  be  unfortunate  for  him  if  he  shall  rely  upon  political  sym- 
pathy for  position,  rather  than  upon  duties  well  and  intelligently  discharged. 
Every  whei'e  the  white  race  should  help  him,  but  his  reliance  must  mainly  be 
upon  himself. 

Thomas  A.  Hendricks. 

[Conclusion.] 

Mr.  BiiAiNK  At  the  instance  of  the  editor  of  the  North  American  Review, 
and  not  by  request  or  desire  of  mine,  the  brief  article  which  I  wrote  in  re- 
gard to  negro  suffrage  was  submitted  to  the  gentlemen  who  have  replied  to 
it,  and  in  turn  their  articles  have  been  submitted  to  me.  I  have  now  the 
privilege  of  rejoinder,  and  the  whole  series  of  papers  thus  assumes  the  phase 
of  a  connected  discussion. 

With  the  exception  of  Mr.  "Wendell  Phillips  and  General  Garfield,  the  re- 
plies are  from  gentlemen  identified  with  the  Democratic  party,  and  distin- 
guished and  influential  in  its  councils.  General  Garfield  is  a  Republican,  and 
has  taken  prominent  and  honorable  part  in  all  the  legislation  respecting 
negro  suffrage.  His  views  are  so  entirely  in  harmony  with  my  own  that 
nothing  is  left  me  but  to  commend  his  admirable  stiitement  of  the  case.  Mr. 
Phillips  is  neither  a  Republican  nor  a  Democrat,  but  reserves  to  himself  the 
right — a  right  most  freely  exercised— to  criticise  and  condemn  either  party 
with  unsparing  severity,  generally  bestowing  his  most  caustic  denunciation 
upon  the  party  to  which  he  most  inclines.  It  is  by  this  sign  that  we  feel  oc- 
casionally comforted  with  the  reflection  that  Mr.  PhiUips  still  has  sympa- 
thies with  the  Republican  party,  and  still  indulges  aspirations  for  its  ulti- 
mate success. 

The  arraignment  of  the  Republicans  at  this  late  day  by  Mr.  Phillips,  be- 
cause they  did  not  reduce  the  Confederate  States  to  Territories  and  govern 
them  by  direct  exercise  of  Federal  power,  is  causeless  and  unjust;  and  it  can 
not  certainly  influence  the  judgment  of  any  man  whose  memory  goes  back 
to  1866-67.  For  I  assume  that  if  anything,  not  capable  of  demonstration,  is 
yet  an  absolute  certainty,  it  is  that  such  an  attempt  by  the  Republican  party 
would  have  led  to  its  utter  overthrow  at  the  initial  point  of  its  reconstruc- 
tion policy. 

The  overthrow  of  the  Republican  party  at  that  time  would  have  restored 
the  Confederate  States  to  fuU  power  in  the  Union  without  the  imposition  of 
a  single  condition,  without  the  exaction  of  a  single  guaranty.  All  the  ines- 
timable provisions  of  the  fourteenth  amendment  would  have  been  lost;  its 
broad  and  comprehensive  basis  of  citizenship;  its  clause  regulating  represen- 
tation in  Congress  and  coercing  the  States  into  granting  suffrage  to  the  negro; 
its  guaranty  of  the  validity  of  the  war  debt  of  the  Union  and  of  pensions  to 
its  soldiers  and  their  widows  and  orphans;  its  inhibition  of  any  tax  by  general 
or  State  government  for  debts  incurred  in  aid  of  the  rebellion  or  for  the 
emancipation  of  any  slave.  These  great  achievements  for  liberty,  in  addition 
to  the  fifteenth  amendment,  would  have  been  put  to  hazard  and  probably 
lost,  could  Mr.  Phillips  have  had  his  way,  in  a  vain  struggle  to  reduce  eleven 
States— four  of  them  belonging  to  the  original  thirteen— to  the  condition  of 
Territories;  thus  committing  the  General  Government  to  a  policy  as  arbitrary 
and  as  sure  to  lead  to  coiTuption  and  tyranny  as  the  proconsular  system  of 
Rome. 

And  as  if  the  Territorial  policy  were  not  enough  to  have  destroyed  the  Re- 
publican party  at  that  time,  Mr.  Phillips  would  have  plunged  us  into  the  wild, 
visionary,  and  unconstitutional  scheme  of  confiscating  the  land  of  the  rebels 
and  giving  it  to  the  freed  men.  Confiscation  laws  were  passed  by  Congress 
during  the  hottest  period  of  the  war;  but  even  then,  when  passions  were  at 
the  highest,  no  enactment  was  proDosed  which  did  not  recognize  the  express 
5998 


57 

limitation  of  the  Constitution  that  in  punishing  treason  there  should  be  no 
"  forfeiture  except  during  the  life  of  the  person  attainted."  The  Republican 
party  has  been  flippantly  accused  by  its  opponents  of  disregarding  the  Con- 
stitution, but  I  venture  to  say  that  there  is  no  parallel  in  the  world  to  so  strict 
an  observance  of  written  law  during  a  critical  and  mighty  war  as  was  shown 
by  the  Republicans  throughout  the  protracted  and  bloody  struggle  that  in- 
volved the  fate  of  free  government  on  this  continent.  It  is  impossible,  there- 
fore, that  the  Republican  pai-ty  could  have  adopted  the  policy  which  Mr. 
Phillips  commends;  and  impossible  that  it  could  have  succeeded  if  the  at- 
tempt had  been  made. 

Of  the  replies  made  by  the  other  gentlemen,  identified  as  they  have  been 
and  are  with  the  Democratic  party,  it  is  noteworthy  that,  with  the  exception 
of  Mr.  Blair,  they  agree  that  the  negro  ought  not  to  be  disfranchised.  As  all 
of  these  gentlemen  were  hostile  to  the  enfranchisement  of  the  race,  their 
present  position  must  be  taken  as  a  great  step  forward,  and  as  an  attestation 
of  the  wisdom  and  courage  of  the  Republican  party  at  the  time  they  were 
violently  opposing  its  measures.  This  general  expression  leaves  Mr.  Blair  to 
be  treated  as  an  exception,  and  for  many  of  his  averments  the  best  answer  is 
to  be  found  in  the  suggestions  and  concessions  of  his  Democratic  associates.  I 
need  not  make  an  elaborate  reply  to  Mr.  Blair,  when  he  is  answered  with  such 
significance  and  such  point  by  those  of  his  own  political  household.  It  is  one 
of  the  curious  developments  of  political  history  that  a  man  who  sat  in  the 
Cabinet  of  Abraham  Lincoln  and  was  present  when  emancipation  was  de- 
creed should  live  to  write  a  paper  against  the  enfranchisement  of  the  negro, 
when  the  vice-president  of  the  rebel  confederacy  and  two  of  its  most  distin- 
guished oflicers  are  taking  the  other  sidel 

Of  Governor  Hampton's  paper  it  is  fair  to  say  that  it  seems  to  have  been 
written  to  cover  a  case;  its  theory  and  application  being  adapted  to  the  lati- 
tude of  South  Carolina  and  to  his  own  political  course.  Mr.  Hampton  is  a 
man  of  strong  parts,  possessing  courage  and  executive  force,  but  he  has  been 
in  the  thick  of  the  fight,  and  has  had  personal  ambitions  to  gratify  which  may 
not  place  him  in  history  as  an  impartial  witness.  His  personality  protrudes 
at  evei-y  point,  and  his  conception  of  what  should  be  done  and  what  should  be 
undone  at  the  South  is  precisely  what  is  included  in  his  own  career.  "When 
Mirabeau  was  describing  all  the  great  qualities  that  should  distinguish  a  pop- 
ular leader,  the  keenest  of  French  wits  said  he  "  had  forgotten  to  add  that  he 
should  be  pockmarked." 

Mr.  Lamar  offers  a  contrast  to  Governor  Hampton.  He  generalizes  and 
philosophizes  with  great  ability,  and  presents  the  strange  combination  of  a 
"refined  speculatist,"  and  a  trustful  optimist— embodying  some  of  the  char- 
acteristics of  Mr.  Calhoun,  whom  he  devoutly  followed,  and  of  Mr.  Seward, 
whom  he  always  opposed.  Mr.  Lamar  is  the  only  man  in  public  life  who  can 
be  praised  in  New  England  for  a  warm  eulogy  of  Charles  Sumner,  and  imme- 
diately afterwards  elected  to  the  Senate  as  the  repi'esentative  of  the  whito- 
line  Democrats  of  Mississippi.  And  yet,  inconsistent  as  these  positions  are, 
it  is  the  dream  of  Mr.  Lamar's  life  to  reconcile  them.  He  is  intensely  devoted 
to  the  South;  he  has  generous  aspirations  for  the  Union  of  the  States;  he  is 
shackled  with  the  narrowing  dogma  of  State  rights,  and  yet  withal  has  bound- 
less hopes  for  an  imperial  republic  whose  power  shall  lead  and  direct  the  civil- 
ization of  the  world.  Hedged  in  by  opposing  theories,  embarrassed  by  forces 
that  seem  irreconcilable,  Mr.  Lamar,  probably  more  than  any  other  man  of 
the  Democratic  party,  gives  anxious  and  inquiring  thought  to  the  future. 

Of  Mr.  Stephens  and  Mr.  Hendrick.s  it  may  be  said  that  in  their  treatment 
of  the  question,  one  aims  to  vindicate  the  course  of  his  native  Georgia;  the 
other  to  gain  some  advantage  for  the  Democratic  party  of  the  nation.  Mr. 
Stephens  has  the  mind  of  a  metaphysician,  led  astray  sometimes  in  his  logic 
and  sometimes  in  his  facts,  but  aiming  always  to  promote  the  interest  of  the 
State  to  which  he  is  devoted.    Mr.  Hendricks  is  an  accomplished  politiail 


58 

leader,  with  large  experience,  possessed  of  tact  and  address,  and  instinctively 
viewing  every  public  question  from  its  relation  to  the  fate  and  fortune  of  his 
party.  Mr.  Stephens  argues  from  the  standpoint  of  Georgia;  Mr.  Hendricks 
has  in  view  the  Democracy  of  the  nation. 

These  Democratic  leaders  unite  in  upholding  the  suffrage  of  the  negro  un- 
der existing  circumstances,  but  each  with  an  obvious  feeling  that  some  con- 
tradiction is  to  be  reconciled,  some  record  to  be  amended,  some  consistency 
to  be  vindicated.  They  all  unite,  however,  on  the  common  groimd  of  de- 
nouncing the  men  who  controlled  the  negro  vote  at  the  outset  in  the  interest 
of  the  Republican  party;  and  the  underlying  conclusion,  not  expressed  but 
implied,  is  that  if  the  military  force  had  been  absent  and  the  persuasion  of 
the  Freedmen's  Bureau  had  not  been  applied,  the  negroes  would  have  flocked, 
as  doves  to  their  windows,  to  the  outstretched  and  protecting  arms  of  the 
Democratic  party.  This  seems  to  me  to  be  sheer  recklessness  of  assumption; 
the  very  bravado  of  argument.  Why  should  the  negro  have  been  disposed 
to  vote  with  the  Dem^ocratic  party?  Mr.  Hendricks  says  he  was  made  to  feel 
that  "  he  owed  servitude  to  a  party  through  the  agency  of  United  States  offi- 
cials and  the  Freedmen's  Bureau."  But  can  Mr.  Hendricks  give  any  possible 
reason  why  the  negro  should  have  voted  with  the  Democratic  party  at  that 
time?  Does  not  the  record  of  Mr.  Hendricks  himself,  as  the  leader  of  the 
Democratic  party  in  the  Senate,  show  the  most  conclusive  reasonswhy  the 
negi'o  should  have  voted  with  the  Republicans? 

Mr.  Hendricks  argued  and  voted  in  the  Senate  against  emancipating  the 
negro  from  helpless  slavei*y;  when  made  free,  Mr.  Hendricks  argued  and 
voted  against  making  him  a  citizen;  citizenship  conferred,  Mr.  Hendricks  ar- 
gued and  voted  against  bestowing  suffrage;  and  he  argued  and  voted  against 
conferring  upon  the  negro  the  most  ordinary  civil  rights,  even  inveighing  in 
the  Senate  against  giving  to  colored  men  who  were  eligible  to  seats  in  Con- 
gress the  simple  privilege  of  a  seat  in  the  horse  cars  of  Washington  in  com- 
mon with  white  men.  Conceding  to  the  negro  the  ordinary  instincts  and 
prejudices  of  human  nature,  it  must  have  required  the  combined  and  ener- 
getic action  of  the  United  States  Army,  the  Federal  officers,  and  the  Freed- 
men's Bureau,  to  hold  him  back  from  his  impulsive  and  irrepressible  desire 
to  vote  with  Mr.  Hendricks  and  the  Democratic  party; 

I  do  not  use  this  argumentum  ad  hominem  in  any  personal  or  offensive 
sense  toward  Mr.  Hendricks.  His  position  was  not  different  from  his  asso- 
ciates and  his  followers  in  the  Democratic  party  on  all  the  questions  where  I 
have  referred  to  his  votes  and  his  speeches.  Mr.  Lamar  occupied  the  same 
ground,  practically,  and  so  did  Mr.  Stephens  and  Governor  Hampton.  In- 
deed, the  entire  Democratic  party  opposed  legislation  for  the  amelioration  of 
the  negro's  condition  at  every  step,  and  opposed  it  not  with  the  mere  registry 
of  negative  votes,  but  with  an  energetic  hostility  that  too  often  assumed  the 
phase  of  auger  and  acrimony.  Emancipation  from  slavery,  grant  of  citizen- 
ship and  civil  rights,  conferring  of  suffrage,  were  all  carried  for  the  negro 
by  the  Republicans  against  a  protesting  and  resisting  Democracy.  Demo- 
cratic Senators  and  Representatives  in  Congress  foiight  all  these  measures 
with  unflagging  zeal.  In  State  legislatures,  on  the  stump,  in  the  partisan 
press,  through  all  the  agencies  that  influence  and  direct  public  opinion,  the 
Democrats  showed  implacable  hostility  to  each  and  evei-y  step  that  was  taken 
toward  elevating  the  negro  to  a  better  condition.  So  that  it  was  inevitable 
that  the  negro  who  had  sense  enough  to  feel  that  he  was  free,  who  had  per- 
ception enough  to  know  that  he  was  a  citizen,  who  had  pride  enough  to  real- 
ize that  he  was  a  voter,  felt  and  knew  and  realized  that  these  gi"eat  enfran- 
chisements had  been  conferred  upon  him  by  the  persistent  energy  of  the 
Republican  party,  and  in  spite  uf  the  efforts  of  an  embittered  and  united 
Democracy.  Is  further  statement  necessary  to  explain  why  the  negro  should 
have  cast  his  vote  for  the  Republican  party  when  a  free  bailjt  was  in  his 
hands?    It  can  be  readUy  understood  why  he  may  now  cast  a  vote  for  the 


59 

Democratic  party  when  he  is  no  longer  allowed  freedom  of  choice,  when  he 
is  no  longer  master  of  his  own  ballot. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  Republicans  were  urged  and  hastened 
to  measures  of  amelioration  for  the  negro  by  very  dangerous  developments 
in  the  Southern  States  looking  to  his  reenslavement,  in  fact,  if  not  in 
form.  The  year  that  followed  the  accession  of  Andrew  Johnson  to  the  Pres- 
idency was  full  of  anxiety  and  of  warning  to  all  the  lovers  of  justice,  to 
all  who  hoped  for  "  a  more  perfect  Union  "  of  the  States.  In  nearly  every 
one  of  the  Confederate  States  the  white  inhabitants  assumed  that  they  were 
to  be  restored  to  the  Union  with  their  State  governments  precisely  as  they 
were  when  they  seceded  in  1861,  and  that  the  organic  change  created  by  the 
thirteenth  amendment  might  be  practically  set  aside  by  State  legislation. 
In  this  belief  they  exhibited  their  policy  toward  the  negro.  Considering  all 
the  circumstances,  it  would  be  hard  to  find  in  history  a  more  causeless 
and  cruel  oppression  of  a  whole  race  than  was  embodied  in  the  legislation  of 
those  revived  and  unrecongtructed  State  governments.  Their  membership 
was  composed  wholly  of  the  "ruling  class,"  as  they  termed  it,  and  in  no 
small  degree  of  Confederate  ofllcers  below  the  rank  of  brigadier-general,  who 
sat  in  the  legislature  in  the  very  uniforms  which  had  distinguished  them  as 
enemies  of  the  Union  upon  the  battlefield.  Limited  space  forbids  my  tran- 
scribing the  black  code  wherewith  they  loaded  their  statute  books.  In  Mr. 
Lamar's  State  the  negroes  were  forbidden,  under  very  severe  penalties,  ■'  to 
keep  firearms  of  any  kind;"  they  were  apprenticed,  if  minors,  to  labor,  pref- 
erence being  given  by  the  statute  to  their  "  former  owners."  Grown  men 
and  women  were  compelled  to  let  their  labor  by  contract,  the  decision  of 
whose  terms  was  wholly  in  the  hands  of  the  whites;  and  those  who  failed  to 
contract  were  to  be  seized  as  "vagrants,"  heavily  fined,  and  their  laborsold 
by  the  sheriff  at  public  outcry  to  the  highest  bidder.  The  terms  "  master  " 
and  "mistress"  continually  recur  in  the  statutes,  and  the  slavery  that  was 
thus  instituted  was  a  far  more  degrading,  merciless,  and  mercenary  type 
than  that  which  was  blotted  out  by  the  thirtaenth  amendment. 

South  Carolina,  whose  moderation  and  justice  are  so  highly  praised  by 
Governor  Hampton,  enacted  a  code  still  more  cruel  than  that  I  have  quoted 
from  Mississippi.  Firearms  were  forbidden  to  the  negro,  and  any  violation 
of  the  statute  was  punished  by  "a  fine  equal  to  twice  the  value  of  the  weapon 
so  unlawfully  kep  t,"  and  "if  that  be  not  immediately  paid,  by  corporeal  pun- 
ishment." It  was  further  provided  that  "no  person  of  color  shall  pursue  or 
practice  the  art,  trade,  or  business  of  an  artisan,  mechanic,  or  shopkeeper,  or 
any  other  trade  or  employment  (besides  that  of  husbandry  or  that  of  a  serv- 
ant under  contract  for  labor),  until  he  shall  have  olitained  a  license  from  the 
judge  of  the  district  court,  which  license  shall  be  good  for  one  year  only." 
If  the  license  was  granted  to  the  negro  to  be  a  shopkeeper  or  peddler  he  was 
compelled  to  pay  $Ml  per  annum  for  it,  and  if  he  pursued  the  rudest  mechan- 
ical calling  he  could  do  so  only  by  the  payment  of  a  license  fee  of  $10  per  an- 
num. No  such  fees  were  exacted  of  the  whites,  and  no  such  fee  of  free 
blacks  during  the  era  of  slavery.  The  negro  was  thus  hedged  in  on  all  sides; 
he  was  down,  and  he  waste  be  kept  down,  and  thechivalric  race  that  denied 
him  a  fair  and  honest  competition  in  the  humblest  mechanical  pursuits  were 
loud  in  their  assertions  of  his  inferiority  and  his  incompetency. 

But  it  was  reserved  for  Louisiana  to  outdo  both  South  Carolina  and  Missis- 
sippi in  this  horrible  legislation.  In  that  State  all  agricultural  laborers  wore 
compelled  to  make  labor  contracts  during  the  first  ton  days  of  January  for 
the  next  year.  The  contract  once  made,  the  laborer  was  not  to  be  allowed  to 
leave  his  place  of  employment  during  the  year  except  upon  conditions  not 
likely  to  happen  and  easily  prevented.  The  master  was  allowed  to  make  de- 
ductions of  the  servants'  wages  for  "injuries  done  to  animals  and  agricul- 
tural implements  committed  to  his  care,"  thus  making  the  negroes  reHpon- 
Bible  for  wear  and  tear.  Deductions  were  to  be  made  for  "bad  or  negligent 
.5998 


60 

work,"  the  master  beingthe  judge.  For  every  act  of  "  disobedience  "  a  fine 
of  $1  was  imposed  on  the  offender,  disobedience  being  a  technical  term  made 
to  include,  besides  "neglect  of  duty"  and  "leaving  home  without  permis- 
sion," such  fearful  offenses  as  " impudence," or  "swearing,"  or  "indecent 
language  in  the  presence  of  the  employer,  his  family,  or  agent,"  or  "quarrel- 
ing or  fighting  with  one  another."  The  master  or  his  agent  might  assail 
every  ear  with  profaneness  aimed  at  the  negro  men,  and  outrage  every  sen- 
timent of  decency  in  the  foul  language  addressed  to  the  negro  women;  but  if 
one  of  the  helpless  creatures,  goaded  to  resistance  and  crazed  under  tyranny, 
should  answer  back  with  impudence,  or  should  relieve  his  mind  with  an  oath, 
or  retort  indecency  upon  indecency,  he  did  so  at  the  cost  to  himself  of  $1  for 
every  outburst.  The  "  agent  "  referred  to  in  the  statute  is  the  well-known 
overseer  of  the  cotton  region,  and  the  care  with  which  the  lawmakers  of 
Louisiana  provided  that  his  delicate  ears  and  sensitive  nerves  should  not  be 
offended  with  an  oath  or  an  indecent  word  from  a  negro  will  be  appreciated 
by  all  who  have  heard  the  crack  of  the  whip  on  a  southern  plantation. 

It  is  impossible  to  quote  all  the  hideous  provisions  of  these  statutes,  under 
whose  operation  the  negro  would  have  relapsed  gradually  and  surely  into 
actual  and  admitted  slavery.  Kindred  legislation  was  attempted  in  a  large 
majority  of  the  Confederate  States,  and  it  is  not  uncharitable  or  illogical  to 
asf;.ame  that  the  ultimate  reenslavement  of  the  race  was  the  fixed  design  of 
tho.*e  who  framed  the  laws  and  of  those  who  attempted  to  enforce  them. 

I  am  not  speculating  as  to  what  would  have  been  done  or  might  have  been 
done  in  the  Southern  States  if  the  National  Government  had  not  intervened. 
I  have  quoted  what  actually  was  done  by  legislatures  under  the  control  of 
southern  Democrats,  and  I  am  only  recalling  history  when  I  say  that  those 
outrages  against  human  nature  were  upheld  by  the  Democratic  party  of  the 
country.  All  the  Democrats  whose  articles  I  am  reviewing  were  in  various 
degrees,  active  or  passive,  principal  or  indorser,  parties  to  this  legislation; 
and  the  fixed  determination  of  the  Republican  party  to  thwart  it  and  destroy 
it  called  down  upon  its  head  aU  the  anathemas  of  Democratic  wrath.  But  it 
was  just  at  that  point  in  our  history  when  the  Republican  party  was  com- 
pelled to  decide  whether  the  emancipated  slave  should  be  protected  by  na- 
tional power  or  handed  over  to  his  late  master  to  be  dealt  with  in  the  spirit 
of  the  enactments  I  have  quoted. 

To  restore  the  Union  on  a  safe  foundation,  to  reestablish  law  and  promote 
order,  to  Insure  justice  and  equal  rights  to  aU,  the  Republican  party  was 
forced  to  its  reconstruction  policy.  To  nesitate  in  its  adoption  was  to  invite 
and  confirm  the  statutes  of  wrong  and  cruelty  to  which  I  have  referred. 
The  first  step  taken  was  to  submit  the  fourteentn  amendment,  giving  citizen- 
ship and  civil  rights  to  the  negro  and  forbidding  that  he  be  counted  in  the 
basis  of  representation  unless  he  should  be  reckoned  among  the  voters.  The 
Southern  States  could  have  been  readily  readmitted  to  all  their  powers  and 
privileges  in  the  Union  by  accepting  the  fourteenth  amendment,  and  negrro 
suffrage  would  not  have  been  forced  upon  them.  The  gradual  and  conserva- 
tive method  of  training  the  negroes  for  franchise,  as  suggested  and  approved 
by  Governor  Hampton,  had  many  advocates  among  Republicans  in  the  North ; 
and,  though  m  my  judgment  it  would  have  proved  delusive  and  impractica- 
ble, it  was  quite  within  the  power  of  the  South  to  secure  its  adoption  or  at 
least  its  trial. 

But  the  States  lately  in  insurrection  rejected  the  fourteenth  amendment 
with  apparent  scorn  and  defiance.  In  the  legislatures  of  Louisiana,  Missis- 
sippi, and  Florida  it  did  not  receive  a  single  vote;  in  South  Carolina,  only  one 
vote;  in  Virginia,  only  one;  in  Texas,  five  votes;  in  Arkansas,  two  votes;  in 
Alabama,  ten;  in  North  Carolina,  eleven,  and  in  Georgia,  where  Mr.  Stephens 
boasts  that  they  gave  the  negro  suffrage  in  advance  of  the  fifteenth  amend- 
ment, only  two  votes  could  be  found  in  favor  of  making  the  negro  even  a 
■citizen.    It  would  have  been  more  candid  in  Mr.  Stephens  if  he  had  stated 


61 

that  it  was  the  legislature  assembled  under  the  reconstruction  act  that  gave 
suffrage  to  the  negro  in  Georgia,  and  that  the  unreconstructod  legislatu'  e. 
which  had  his  indorsement  and  sympathies  and  which  elected  him  to  the 
United  States  Senate,  not  only  refused  suffrage  to  the  negro,  but  loaded  him 
with  grievous  disabilities  and  passed  a  criminal  code  of  barbarous  severity 
for  his  punishment. 

It  is  necessary  to  a  clear  apprehension  of  the  needful  facts  in  this  disc  is- 
sion  to  remember  events  in  the  proper  order  of  time.  The  fourteenth  ameid- 
ment  was  submitted  to  the  States  June  13,  1866.  In  the  autumn  of  that  year, 
or  very  early  in  1867,  the  legislatures  of  all  the  insurrectionary  States  except 
Tennessee  had  rejected  it.  Thus  and  then  the  question  was  forced  upon  us, 
whether  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  composed  wholly  of  men  who  had 
been  loyal  to  the  Government,  or  the  legislatures  of  the  rebel  States,  com- 
posed wholly  of  men  who  had  been  disloyal  to  the  Government,  should  de- 
termine the  basis  on  which  their  relations  to  the  Union  should  be  resumed. 
In  such  a  crisis  the  Republican  party  could  not  hesitate;  to  halt,  indeed, 
would  have  been  an  abandonment  of  the  pi-inciples  on  which  the  war  had 
been  fought;  to  surrender  to  the  rebel  legislatures  would  have  been  cowardly 
desertion  of  its  loyal  friends  and  a  base  betrayal  of  the  Union  cause. 

And  thus,  in  March,  1867,  after  and  because  of  the  rejection  of  the  four- 
teenth amendment  by  southern  legislatures,  Congress  passed  the  reconstruc- 
tion act.  This  was  the  origin  of  negro  suffrage.  The  southern  whites  know- 
ingly  and  willfully  brought  it  upon  themselves.  The  reconstruction  act 
would  never  have  been  demanded  had  the  Southern  States  accepted  the  four- 
teenth amendment  in  good  faith.  But  that  amendment  contained  so  many 
provisions  demanded  by  considerations  of  great  national  policy  that  its  adop- 
tion became  an  absolute  necessity.  Those  who  controlled  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment would  have  been  recreant  to  their  plainest  duty  had  they  permitted 
the  power  of  these  States  to  be  wielded  by  disloyal  hands  against  the  meas- 
iires  deemed  essential  to  the  security  of  the  Union.  To  have  destroyed  the 
rebellion  on  the  battlefield  and  then  permit  it  to  seize  the  power  of  eleven 
States  and  cry  check  on  all  changes  in  the  organic  law  necessary  to  prevent 
future  rebellions  would  have  been  a  weak  and  wicked  conclusion  to  the 
grandest  contest  ever  waged  for  human  rights  and  for  constitutional  liberty. 

Negro  suffrage  being  thus  made  a  necessity  by  the  obduracy  of  those  who 
were  in  control  of  the  South,  it  became  a  subsequent  necessity  to  adopt  tlie 
fifteenth  amendment.  Nothing  could  have  been  more  despicable  than  to  use 
the  negroes  to  secure  the  adoption  of  the  fourteenth  amendment  and  thin 
leave  them  exposed  to  the  hazard  of  losing  suffrage  whenever  those  who  had 
attempted  to  reenslave  them  should  regain  political  power  in  their  States. 
Hence  the  fifteenth  amendment,  which  never  pretended  to  guarantee  uni- 
versal suffrage,  but  simply  forbade  that  any  man  should  lose  his  vote  because 
he  had  once  been  a  slave,  or  because  his  face  might  be  black,  or  because  his 
remote  ancestors  came  from  Africa. 

It  is  matter  of  sincere  congratulation  that  after  all  the  contests  of  the 
past  thirteen  years  four  eminent  leaders  of  the  Democratic  party  should 
unite  in  approving  negro  suffrage.  It  will  not,  I  trust,  be  considered  cynical, 
certainly  not  offensive,  if  I  venture  to  suggest  that  this  Democratic  harmony 
on  the  Republican  side  of  a  long  contest  has  been  developed  just  at  the  time 
when  many  causes  have  conspired  to  render  negi'o  suffrage  in  the  South 
powerless  against  the  Democratic  party.  Even  in  districts  where  the  negro 
vote  is  four  to  one,  compared  with  the  whites,  the  Democrats  readily  elect 
the  Representatives  to  Congress.  I  do  not  recall  any  warm  approval  of  negro 
suffrage  by  a  Democratic  leader  so  long  as  the  negro  was  able  to  elect  one  of 
his  own  race  or  a  white  Republican.  But  when  his  numbers  have  Ijeen  over- 
borne by  violence,  when  his  white  friends  have  been  driven  into  oxilo,  when 
murder  has  been  just  frequent  enough  to  intimidate  the  voting  majority,  and 
when  negro  suffrage  as  a  political  power  has  been  destroyed,  we  find  loading 


62 

minds  in  the  Democratic  party  applauding  and  upholding  it.  So  lately  as 
February  19, 1872,  years  after  negro  suffrage  was  adopted  and  while  it  was 
still  a  power  in  the  Southern  States,  such  influential  and  prominent  Demo- 
crats as  Mr.  Bayard,  of  Delaware,  and  Mr.  Beck,  of  Kentucky,  united  in  an 
oflicial  report  to  Congress,  wherein  they  declared,  regarding  negro  suffrage, 
that  "there  can  be  no  permanent  partition  of  power  nor  any  peaceable  joint 
exercise  of  power  among  such  discordant  bodies  of  men.  One  or  the  other 
must  have  all  or  none.  *  *  *  Pseudo-philanthropists,"  continued  Mr. 
Bayard  and  Mr.  Beck,  "  may  talk  never  so  loudly  about '  equality  before  the 
law,'  where  equality  is  not  found  in  the  great  natural  law  of  race  ordained 
by  the  Creator."  Mr.  BeckandMr.  Bayard  made  this  report  when  fresh  from 
protracted  intercourse  with  southern  Democratic  leaders,  and  it  will  not  be 
denied  that  in  their  expressions  they  fully  represented  the  opinions  of  their 
party  at  that  time.  "Will  it  be  offensive  if  I  again  ask  what  has  changed  the 
views  of  Democrats  except  the  overthrow  of  free  suffrage?  So  long  as  the 
negro  can  furnish  thirty-flve  Representatives  and  thirty -five  electors  to  the 
South,  his  suffrage  will  be  upheld  in  name,  and  so  long  as  the  Democratic 
party  is  dominant  it  will  be  destroyed  in  fact. 

Mr.  Hendricks  is  a  conspicuous  convert.  The  negro  is  washed  and  made 
white  in  his  eyes  as  soon  as  he  votes  the  Democratic  ticket.  He  is  greatly 
affected  by  the  fact  that  negroes  "helped  to  bury  a  Democratic  Congressman 
whom  they  had  helped  to  elect."  In  this  simple  incident  Mr.  Hendricks  finds 
great  evidence  of  restored  kindliness  between  the  races.  Was  there  ever  a 
time  when  the  colored  people  refused  to  show  respect  to  the  whites,  living 
or  dead?  The  evidence  would  have  been  stronger  if  an  instance  had  been 
quoted  of  white  men  paying  respect  to  a  deceased  negro.  But,  unhappily,  if 
funeral  incidents  are  to  be  cited,  Mr.  Hendricks  will  find  more  than  he  cares 
to  quote.  Almost  at  the  moment  of  his  writing  testimony  was  given  before 
a  Senate  committee  in  Louisiana  not  only  of  the  murder  of  two  negroes  for 
the  sin  of  being  Republicans,  but  of  their  being  left  without  sepulture  and 
actually  devoured  by  hogs  on  the  highway!  Their  remains— the  phrase  is 
doubly  significant  in  this  case — were  finally  covered  with  earth  by  some 
negro  women,  the  negro  men  having  all  fled  from  their  white  persecutors. 

Mr.  Hendricks's  high  praise  of  the  governments  of  South  Carolina  and 
Louisiana,  since  they  feU  under  Democratic  control,  is  not  justified  by  the 
facts.  Where  he  speaks  of  Republicans  connected  with  the  government  of 
South  Carolina  "  meeting  their  punishment  in  prison  and  seeking  their  safety 
in  flight,"  he  provokes  an  easy  retort.  One  of  these  men,  an  ex-Congressman, 
was  sent  to  prison  on  disgi-acefully  insuflicient  evidence,  the  judge  delivering 
a  bitter  partisan  harangue  when  he  charged  the  jury  to  convict.  Governor 
Hampton,  to  his  credit  be  it  said,  pardoned  him,  and  it  would  have  been  still 
more  to  his  credit  had  he  pardoned  him  more  promptly.  In  another  case  the 
executive  of  a  great  Commonwealth  refused  Governor  Hampton's  requisi- 
tion on  the  ground  that  the  man  was  not  wanted  for  the  cause  and  the  crime 
alleged.  These  criminal  charges  have,  in  many  cases,  borne  the  appearance 
of  mere  political  persecutions,  in  which  the  victims  are  not  the  persons  most 
dishonored. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  South  Carolinians  by  the  hundred  were  indicted 
for  interfering  with  the  freedom  of  elections  in  killing  negroes  by  the  score, 
it  was  found  impossible  to  convict  one  of  them.  Against  the  clearest  and 
most  overwhelming  evidence  these  murderers  were  allowed  to  go  free,  and 
the  prosecutions  were  abandoned.  South  CaroUna  courts  appear  to  be  "  or- 
ganized to  convict"  when  a  Republican  is  on  trial,  and  South  Carolina  juries 
impaneled  to  acquit  when  Democrats  are  charged  with  crime. 

In  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Hendricks,  Louisiana  under  Republican  control  was 
the  very  worst  of  aU  the  southern  governments.  A  change  was  made  in  April, 
1877,  and  since  then  the  Democratic  party  has  held  undisputed  power  in  that 
State.    When  the  Republicans  surrendered  the  State  there  was  a  surplus  of 


63 

t300,0fX)  in  its  treasury;  taxes  were  collected,  credit  maintained,  and  interest 
on  its  public  securities  promptly  and  faithfully  paid.  To-day,  after  twenty- 
one  months  of  Democratic  government,  according  to  public  and  undenied 
report,  the  State  is  bankrupt,  its  taxes  uncollected,  its  treasury  empty,  nearly 
half  a  million  overdrawn  on  its  fiscal  agent,  the  interest  on  its  public  debt 
unpaid,  and  its  most  sacred  obligations  protested  and  dishonored.  Had  such 
decadence  happened  in  a  State  under  Republican  rule,  succeeding  a  prosper- 
ous Democratic  administration,  the  denunciations  of  Mr.  Hendricks  might 
have  been  fittingly  applied. 

My  conclusions  on  the  topic  under  discussion  are: 

First.  Slavery  having  been  constitutionally  abolished  by  the  adoption  of 
the  thirteenth  amendment,  the  question  of  suffrage  was  unsettled.  But  it 
may  be  safely  affirmed  that  the  Republicans  had  no  original  design  of  inter- 
fering with  the  control  which  the  States  had  always  exercised  on  that  ques- 
tion. 

Second.  The  loyal  men  who  had  conducted  the  war  to  a  victorious  end  were 
not  willing  that  those  who  had  rebelled  against  the  Union  should  come  back 
with  pohtical  power  vastly  increased  beyond  that  which  they  had  wielded 
In  the  days  of  proslavery  domination,  and  hence  they  proposed  the  fourteenth 
amendment,  practically  basing  representation  in  Congress  upon  the  voting 
population — the  same  for  North  and  South. 

Third.  Instead  of  accepting  the  fourteenth  amendment,  the  insurrection- 
ary States  scornfully  rejected  it,  and  claimed  the  right  to  settle  for  them- 
selves the  terms  on  which  they  would  resume  relations  with  the  Union.  And 
they  forthwith  proceeded  to  nullify  the  thirteenth  amendment  by  adopting 
a  series  of  black  laws  which  remanded  the  negro  to  a  worse  servitude  than 
that  from  which  he  had  been  emancipated. 

Fourth.  When  the  Government,  administered  by  loyal  hands,  found  it  im- 
possible to  secm-e  the  necessary  guaranties  for  future  safety  from  the  "  rul- 
ing" or  rebel  class  of  the  South,  they  demanded  and  enforced  a  reconstruc- 
tion in  which  loyalty  should  assert  its  rights.  Hence  the  negro  was  admitted 
to  suffrage. 

Fifth.  The  negro  having  aided  by  loyal  votes  in  securing  the  grreat  guar- 
anties of  the  fourteenth  amendment,  the  Republicans  declared  that  he  should 
not  afterwards  be  deprived  of  stiff  rage  on  account  of  race  or  color.  Hence  the 
fifteenth  amendment. 

Sixth.  So  long  as  the  negro  vote  was  effective  in  the  South  in  defeating  the 
Democracy,  the  leaders  of  that  party  denounced  and  opposed  it.  They  with- 
draw their  opposition  just  at  the  moment  when,  by  fraud,  intimidation,  vio- 
lence, and  murder,  free  suffrage  on  the  part  of  the  negro  in  the  South  is 
fatally  impaired;  by  which  I  mean  that  the  negro  is  not  allowed  to  vote  freely 
where  his  vote  can  defeat  and  elect.  As  a  minority  voter  in  Democratic  dis- 
tricts he  is  not  disturbed. 

Seventh.  The  answer  so  often  made,  that,  compared  with  the  whole  num- 
ber of  Congressional  districts  in  the  South,  only  a  smaU  number  are  disturbed, 
is  not  apposite  and  does  not  convey  the  truth.  For  it  is  only  in  the  districts 
where  the  negroes  make  a  strong  and  united  effort  that  violence  is  needed, 
and  there  it  is  generally  found.  Thus  it  is  said  that  only  in  a  comparatively 
few  parishes  of  Louisiana  was  there  any  disturbance  at  the  late  election. 
But  the  Democrats  contrived  to  have  a  disturbance  at  the  points  whore  it 
was  necessary  to  overcome  a  large  Republican  vote,  and  of  course  had  none 
where  there  was  no  resistance.  It  will  generally  be  found  that  the  violence 
occurs  in  the  districts  where  the  Republicans  have  a  rightful  majority. 

Eighth.  As  the  matter  stands,  all  violence  in  the  South  inures  to  the  bene- 
fit of  one  political  party;  and  that  party  is  counting  upon  its  accession  to 
power  and  its  rule  over  the  country  for  a  series  of  years  by  reason  of  the 
great  number  of  electoral  votes  which  it  wrongfully  gains.  Financial  credit, 
commercial  enterprises,  manufacturing  industries,  may  all  possibly  pass 


64 

under  the  control  of  the  Democratic  party  by  reason  of  its  unlawful  seizure 
of  political  power  in  the  South.  Our  institutions  have  been  tried  by  the  fiery 
test  of  war  and  have  survived.  It  remains  to  be  seen  whether  the  attempt 
to  govern  the  country  by  the  power  of  a  "  Solid  South,"  unlawfully  consoli- 
dated, can  be  successful. 

No  thoughtful  man  can  consider  these  questions  without  deep  concern. 
The  mighty  power  of  a  Eepublic  of  50,000,000  people— with  a  continent  for 
their  possession— can  only  be  wielded  permanently  by  being  wielded  hon- 
estly. In  a  fair  and  generous  struggle  for  partisan  power  let  us  not  forget 
those  issues  and  those  ends  which  are  above  party.  Organized  wrong  will 
ultimately  be  met  by  organized  resistance.  The  sensitive  and  dangerous 
point  is  in  the  casting  and  the  counting  of  free  ballots.  Impartial  suffrage  is  our 
theory.  It  must  become  our  practice.  Any  party  of  American  citizens  can 
bear  to  be  defeated.  No  party  of  American  citizens  wiU  bear  to  be  defrauded. 
The  men  who  are  interested  in  a  dishonest  count  are  units.  The  men  who 
are  interested  in  an  honest  count  are  millions.  I  wish  to  speak  for  the  mil- 
lions of  all  political  parties,  and  in  their  name  to  declare  that  the  Republic 
must  be  strong  enough,  and  shall  be  strong  enough,  to  protect  the  weakest 
of  its  citizens  in  all  their  rights.  To  this  simple  and  sublime  principle  let  us, 
in  the  lofty  language  of  Burke,  "attest  the  retiring  generations,  let  us  at- 
test the  advancing  generations,  between  which,  as  a  link  in  the  great  chain 
of  eternal  order,  we  standi " 

James  G.  Blaine. 

xin. 

Section  1.  Neither  slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude,  except  as  a  punish- 
ment for  crime  whereof  the  party  shall  have  been  duly  convicted,  shall  exist 
within  the  United  States  or  any  place  subject  to  their  jurisdiction. 

Sec.  2.  Congress  shall  have  power  to  enforce  this  article  by  appropriate 
legislation. 

XIV. 

Section  1.  AU  persons  bom  or  naturalized  in  the  United  States  are  subject 
to  the  jurisdiction  thereof,  are  citizens  of  the  United  States,  and  of  the  State 
wherein  they  reside.  No  State  shall  make  or  enforce  any  law  which  shall 
abridge  the  privileges  or  immunities  of  citizens  of  the  United  States;  nor 
shall  any  State  deprive  any  pereon  of  life,  liberty,  or  property  without  due 
process  of  law,  nor  deny  to  any  person  within  its  jurisdiction  the  equal  pro- 
tection of  the  laws. 

Sec.  2.  Representatives  shall  be  apportioned  among  the  several  States  ac- 
cording to  their  respective  numbers,  counting  the  whole  number  of  persons  in 
each  State,  exclud  ng  Indians  not  taxed.  But  when  the  right  to  vote  at  any 
election  for  the  choice  of  electors  for  President  and  Vice-President  of  the 
United  States,  Representatives  in  Congress,  the  executive  and  judicial  oflS- 
cers  of  a  State,  or  the  members  of  the  legislature  thereof  is  denied  to  any  of 
the  male  inhabitants  of  such  State  being  21  years  of  age  and  citizens  of  the 
United  States,  or  in  any  way  abridged  except  for  participation  in  rebellion 
or  other  crime,  the  basis  of  representation  therein  shall  be  reduced  to  the 
proportion  which  the  number  of  such  male  citizens  shall  bear  to  the  whole 
number  of  male  citizens  21  years  of  age  in  such  State. 

******* 

Sec.  5.  The  Congress  shall  have  power  to  enforce  by  appropriate  legislation 
the  provisions  of  this  article. 

XV. 

Section  1.  The  right  of  the  citizens  of  the  United  States  to  vote  shall  not 
be  denied  or  abridged  by  the  United  States  or  by  any  State  on  account  of 
race,  color,  or  previous  condition  of  servitude. 

Sec.  2.  The  Congress  shall  ha  ve  power  to  enforce  this  article  by  appropriate 
legislation. 

5998  O 


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